NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton Of Tarkenton Companies: How My Experience in Athletics Trained Me to Become a Better Leader
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
One of the great things about sports is that at the end of the game, there’s a winner and there’s a loser. You know what happened because it’s in bright lights on the scoreboard, all over the newspaper headlines, and (today) all across social media. You get immediate feedback on what worked — the plays that helped you score points and stop the other team — and what didn’t — the plays that went nowhere and the times your opponent ran over, around, and past you. Great athletes learn to measure everything — not just the wins and losses, but every single play that added up to that final result.
The world of sports is not just about physical prowess or competition; it’s an incubator for leadership qualities such as discipline, teamwork, strategic planning, and resilience. Athletes, from amateur levels to professional arenas, often encounter situations that test their limits and require them to step up in ways that mirror the challenges faced by leaders in various fields. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Fran Tarkenton.
Fran Tarkenton is an entrepreneur and NFL Hall of Famer, and the founder of Tarkenton Companies. Successfully starting and running more than 20 companies spanning a wide range of industries, Fran is a passionate advocate for small business owners and entrepreneurs. The product of all of Fran’s experiences is Tarkenton, which has partnered with major enterprises for more than two decades, bringing a combination of strategic thinking, operational excellence, and fast-paced action to complex business problems. Fran is the driving force behind Tarkenton, Tarkenton Financial, and Tarkenton Private Capital.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
This story comes at the very beginning of my career. I played high school football in Athens, Georgia, and I got a scholarship offer from the University of Georgia to play for the hometown Bulldogs. So I ended up at UGA right across the street from where I grew up. Freshmen weren’t allowed to play with the varsity in those days. We had our own games, so it wasn’t until my sophomore year that I got to join the varsity team. We had two highly recruited quarterbacks on the team already, so our head coach told me I was going to be redshirted that year.
Come September we were in Austin, Texas, to play the Texas Longhorns in the first game of the season. Through the first two and a half quarters I stood on the sideline watching us lose, down 7–0. The whole time I was looking over at my coach and tugging at his shoulder. “Put me in,” I told him again and again.
Finally, the Longhorns punted the ball to Georgia and our receiver caught it on the five-yard line. I looked over and our quarterback, Charley Britt, was sitting on the bench, and I was at the 50 yard line. I knew it was my chance. I bolted onto the field and got in the huddle. My teammates looked around at me and asked, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Shut up, we got to go!”
We started driving, and in 20 plays we made it 95 yards and scored a touchdown! But we were still behind 7–6. As it happened, this was the first year of the two-point conversion, where you could either kick for one point or go for two. After we scored, our coach sent our kicker, Durward Pennington, onto the field…but I waived him off. I wanted to go for two! I knew this was a risky decision, so I told my teammates in the huddle, “Listen, if we don’t make this two-point conversion I’m going to have to take the Greyhound Bus from Austin, Texas, to Athens, Georgia, so you better help me make this thing!” Sure enough, we got the two points to take the lead 8–7.
That’s how I started my football career at Georgia, and without that play I don’t know if I still go on to have the same career I had. That’s where it all began.
Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Learn more from your failures than from your success. No one gets it right every time. Don’t hide from accountability, but embrace the truth and use what you learn to get better and better every day.
In football and in business, every time I haven’t prepared properly, that’s when I take a big loss. I lost three Super Bowls. I’ve had businesses that didn’t work. I learned from all of those losses and failures. As time goes on, it doesn’t happen as often because I’ve gotten smarter. I’ve learned how to be prepared, and I understand that everything requires preparation. If you want to have a chance to win, you have to be truly prepared. - Have a sense of desperation. This goes back to my first game at Georgia. I had a sense of desperation that I needed to get in that game if I was going to have the career I wanted. Never get complacent, no matter how much success you’ve had in the past. Keep the heart of a challenger to face the day with energy and boldness. Every time we think we’ve got something figured out, we don’t. I understand that, and so every day I wake up with a sense of desperation. I have to be better today than I was yesterday. I’ve got to be better and smarter, constantly thinking how can we improve? How can we advance?
- Reinvent yourself every day. In a world that is constantly changing and moving, staying still is falling behind. Always be looking for ways to get a little bit better, and stay open to change. Every day, you have to be open and willing to change, never letting yourself get locked into a single way of doing things. You can’t stand still, you’ve got to reinvent yourself every day so you’re constantly evolving. In football, we had to change our offense all the time. Not season to season. Not even week to week. We were changing and adapting from quarter to quarter and even from play to play! If we didn’t do that, defenses would catch up and stop us, so it was constant reinvention and improvement.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a pivotal moment in your athletic career that taught you a leadership lesson you’ve applied outside of sports?
One of the most unforgettable moments in my career came during my first season back with the Minnesota Vikings, in 1972. It was my first season with our head coach Bud Grant, who became one of the great mentors of my life.
We were at training camp at Mankato State College, staying in one of the dormitories that was a short walk from the practice fields. After practice one night, Bud stood up and closed out the practice with a special request to the entire team. About halfway between our dormitory and the field house, there was a little patch of grass the college was trying to grow. They were going to put up a small sign that said, “Keep Off the Grass,” and Bud told everybody to please take a detour around that spot. It was a bit of an odd way to end practice, I thought.
After lunch the next day, I got a message to go see Bud in his room. When I went in, he was over by his window, looking at the space between our dormitory and the field house. “Come on in here,” he told me. “Do you see what I see?”
I just saw guys walking over to go to practice. But Bud shook his head and said, “Don’t you remember what I said last night? Look, there’s one!” As he pointed it out, one of the players walked over the little patch of grass he’d been talking about the night before.
“See those people that are walking over the grass?” he asked me. “They’re not trying to disrespect me, but they just don’t see the signs, even though I told them last night. Those players will make a really bad mistake somewhere down the line that will cost us a game because they don’t see the signs. Great players see the signs.”
He was right — and not just in football. It’s not always a literal sign, but there are always signs for us to see if we’re paying attention. The signs will help us to see what ideas are working, and what aren’t. The signs will help us to know when an employee is thriving, and when they are not a good fit. The signs show us reality.
How has your experience in team dynamics within athletics influenced your approach to leadership in the workplace?
It’s no different. Whether you’re leading a football team or a business team, so much is the same. The number one thing I’ve learned from my time in football and in business is that teams win, individuals lose. The mission of a quarterback is to make his teammates better. The mission of a leader in business is to make their teammates better. We worked hard to put our best 11 guys out on that field. Why? Because that gave us the best opportunity to win. It’s the same in business, I hire the best, smartest, hardest working people around, because that’s how we’re going to be the most successful.
In what ways has facing defeat or challenges in sports prepared you for handling failure and setbacks in your professional life?
I learn so much more from losing than from winning. Going back to my time in football, whenever you’re doing well it’s easy to start thinking, “I’ve got this all figured out.” Whenever that happened in my NFL career, that was when reality would hit back and show me how little I had figured out.
Whenever we won a game, the team would celebrate together. We’d all go out and talk about how great we had played. But when we lost, I didn’t go out. There was no party. I would just lock myself away with the game film and study every single play. I would ask myself, “What could I have done better? What mistakes did I make? How can I make sure I don’t make those same mistakes again?” So when we lost, that was when I did most of the learning that would help me win more in the future.
It’s the same way in business. We try things; sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. If they don’t work, that’s not the end. That just means it’s time to take a step back and look at what we can learn from the experience. What could we have done better? What mistakes did we make? How can we make sure we don’t make those same mistakes again? It makes us smarter and better for the next thing we try.
How do you apply the discipline and training regimen from your athletic pursuits to your current leadership role?
The real way you get better is by asking more questions. Here’s what I mean. I came into the NFL when I was 21 years old, and had all my physical capabilities. At my last game, I was 38 years and 11 months old. I couldn’t do the things I did in my younger days; I couldn’t throw it as far, I couldn’t run as fast, I couldn’t jump as high. But my brain and my leadership abilities helped us continue to win. Even in my last year of football, I led the league in yards passing, with a broken shoulder! I couldn’t throw the ball more than 40 yards in the air, and it probably took me 6 seconds to run the 40 — but all the knowledge I had learned over the years made me a better leader, and I helped my teammates more than I could when I was 21. So the physical abilities I had I could use, but I had to understand that while the physical maybe wasn’t as good anymore, the mental was better than ever.
And I got there by asking questions. I learned from everybody I could. All throughout my career, I would visit other quarterbacks. Some who were still playing, but plenty of other retired quarterbacks, too — some of the great, legendary Hall of Famers. I would sit down and say, “Tell me how you did it. Tell me your philosophy. Tell me how you became a Hall of Fame quarterback. Tell me how you led your team.” And they did! Because people like to tell you their stories.
I’ve brought that same approach to business. I don’t think I’ve ever had an original thought; everything I know is from what I hear, what I read, and what I see. So I want to surround myself with the smartest, best people and learn from them! Just like I learned how to be a pro quarterback from people like Sid Luckman and Dandy Don Meredith, I learned about business from geniuses like Sam Walton and Bernie Marcus. I know I don’t have all the answers, so I’m there to listen and learn. Today, that means people who are so brilliant with technology — things we couldn’t even dream of years ago. But I want those people on my team, and I want to learn from them and empower them in my businesses.
Reflecting on your journey, what specific skills or attributes developed through athletics do you believe are most essential for effective leadership?
Of all the things I’ve learned in life, one of the most important is this: people have to talk to people. It’s something that you have to learn in sports — at least, you do if you want to be successful. Communication is so, so important.
I’ve already mentioned how I would reach out to other quarterbacks and ask them questions. But they weren’t the only ones! For example, there are also the coaches. One of the biggest responsibilities I had as the quarterback was helping to install the offense every offseason, and then set up the game plan each week. I would sit down with our offensive coordinator and we would go back and forth in the most open, honest way possible. The whole team was relying on us to put together something that would help us win, so it really mattered! There was plenty of arguing, but it was all because we wanted to find the right answer. We had to talk — and, yes, sometimes yell — to each other about what plays we thought would work, what plays wouldn’t, and what we would do in different situations. Beyond the offensive coaches, I learned to reach out to the defensive coaches; I loved sitting in meetings with the defensive side and learning how they thought. What were they seeing from other offenses? I learned to think like the defense, so that I could beat other defenses. Again, all because I was willing to go out and talk to people.
It continued during games. In those days, the quarterback called the plays; there was no headset with plays coming from a coordinator upstairs in a booth. It was me and 10 of my teammates standing in a huddle. To make the right decision, I needed to listen to my teammates. If my tackle Ron Yary told me he could beat his man on the outside, I would listen and build that into the next play. If my wide receiver told me he could get open with a certain move, I would listen. If a teammate told me that there was something that wasn’t working, I would listen to that, too. I was calling the plays, but I needed information from these great players around me to make the right decisions. It all comes back to being willing to talk to and listen to other people. There’s nothing more important than that.
Based on your experience, can you please share “5 Ways That Athletics Can Help Train Great Leaders?”
1 . First, athletics shows us that teams win, individuals lose. We can’t win on our own in sports, and you can’t succeed in business or in anything else as a leader when you’re on your own. Winning as a football player takes a whole team. Even in more individual sports, not team sports, there’s still a team behind the athlete: trainers, coaches, medical staff, etc. If you’re just trying to do everything yourself, it will never work. This is the kind of thing where there’s not so much any one specific story as there is just the built-up experience of an entire career. I learned very early on that my best friends were going to be my offensive linemen. They were the ones who would protect me on the field, and give me the opportunity to make plays as a passer or runner (or scrambler). My very best friend was my center with the Minnesota Vikings, Mick Tingelhoff; he was my roommate when we traveled, and the foundation for our offense. But I needed all those guys: the linemen, the running backs like Chuck Foreman, and the receivers like Sammy White and Ahmad Rashad.
2 . Another important lesson you learn is about how you have to build a team with character. You can have a team filled with all-pros, but if you have a player who’s a cancer in the locker room, he has to go. Same in business. You can be incredibly smart, productive, high achieving…but if you don’t have the right character, then it won’t work in the long run. A great example of this actually came some time after I had retired from the NFL. A head coach reached out to me to get advice on what to do; he had a great team that ought to be a Super Bowl contender, but they were underachieving. The problem, he believed, stemmed from one of his star players, who was a massive problem in the locker room. He explained the situation, and asked for my opinion. “Get rid of him,” I said. “What?” he asked. “Trade him, cut him, get him out of there,” I answered. The coach was surprised; the team had traded a lot to get this player, and he had all the talent in the world, but I made the case that if the character wasn’t right, the rest didn’t matter. I waited to see what would happen, and sure enough, a few weeks later the team made a move to get rid of their star player. To everyone else’s surprise, it turned their season around! As a leader, you need to build with character first. You need to have the right people. High performers are great, but they also need to be high character.
3 . As athletes, we know how important it is to have great coaches. You need coaches and mentors to succeed in any part of life — football, business, just life in general! In sports, we recognize good leaders and bad leaders. In my era, we had some really bad coaches. But then I also had some great coaches who made a huge difference in my career and in my life. The great Bud Grant, of course, was the most important of them all. But I also got to play in Pro Bowls for Tom Landry, Don Shula, and Vince Lombardi, and I took advantage of those opportunities to learn from those iconic leaders. I would ask them questions every chance I had, and listen to every word. I brought that same approach to business. I learned business from successful businesspeople, just like I learned football by talking to successful players and coaches. The great Sam Walton was one of my mentors in business. I spent hours upon hours riding in his pickup truck visiting stores and attending store openings, and I had new questions for him on every trip. We all need mentors, we all need to learn from other people who’ve done what we’re doing. In sports, there’s a very formal structure to that, but it’s a mistake to overlook doing it in business, too.
4 . Athletes, even the greatest, have to learn how to deal with failure. In the NFL, there are 32 teams; only one team can win the championship at the end of the year. At some point, whether it’s in the regular season, the playoffs, or the championship game, everybody else loses. I played in 3 of the first 11 Super Bowls, and lost all 3. Each time, that motivated me to come back and get better. Even players we think of as great winners have to deal with losing: Tom Brady lost 3 Super Bowls, too! Leaders have to know how to fail, because nobody is able to get it right 100% of the time. We all make mistakes; we try things that don’t work; we all lose at some point, whether it’s large or small. What sets the most successful leaders apart is not avoiding failure; it’s how they respond to failure. Does it motivate them to come back stronger, to try again? Or are they so discouraged that they walk away?
5 . One of the great things about sports is that at the end of the game, there’s a winner and there’s a loser. You know what happened because it’s in bright lights on the scoreboard, all over the newspaper headlines, and (today) all across social media. You get immediate feedback on what worked — the plays that helped you score points and stop the other team — and what didn’t — the plays that went nowhere and the times your opponent ran over, around, and past you. Great athletes learn to measure everything — not just the wins and losses, but every single play that added up to that final result. Maybe we’re moving the ball easily in the middle of the field but having a hard time getting across the goal line once we move into the red zone. Maybe we’re having great success with short passes but can’t get big plays on deep throws. Maybe our running backs are having great success going to one side, but struggling going the opposite way. In my career, we had to pay attention to all those things. That’s how we knew what was working and what we had to work on. If you are able to win on each individual play, then you’re going to win a lot of games. As a business leader, you also have to know how to measure what matters. It’s not as easy as in sports, because you don’t get that immediate feedback. It takes longer to put something together, execute it, and wait to see if it works in the marketplace. But, eventually, you will see the results. And even while you’re waiting for the big picture to become more clear, you can still measure what’s going on at each step of the way. Sports teaches us to think very analytically with each detail, and that mindset is so important for leaders in any business.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
There’s a great mantra that I follow in my life and in my businesses. In fact, it’s written in big letters in our office. The mission of business is to help people. The mission of life is to help people. We want to help people solve problems.
I know there are a lot of people who think the mission of business is to make money. But that’s not right. If your only mission is to make money, then you’ll compromise your principles. When your mission is to help other people, and you’re able to do it really well, then not only do you get to feel better about yourself and the impact you’re having on the world, but the money will come, too. If you’re solving problems for people, then they will be willing to pay for it! That’s why business is so fun for me. It’s always been fun for me. It’s fun to solve problems! I want to experience every ounce of that joy in my life that I possibly can by helping people and creating a successful business at the same time.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Subscribe to our newsletter: https://tarkenton.com/our-thinking/
Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantarkenton/
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton Of Tarkenton Companies: How My Experience in Athletics Trained Me… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.