Purple Mafia Profile - David Hansburg (aka "The Sign Stealer")

Oh, this is good. You may think THE story of the week in Big Ten world is the formal announcement of the Big Ten Network/Comcast deal which became "official" last night. I would beg to differ and say the Detroit Free Press' article about the Michigan ball boys "saving" the 1997 national championship season by catching Northwestern "stealing signs" was THE story. Today, I welcome, David Hansburg, the star of said article, and former Northwestern Director of Football Operations. Today, David runs the Rocky Mountain Day Camp and you can find out more about his bio (he played football at Amherst) here.

If you have STILL not read the article, I insist you do as it is mandatory reading before you enjoy this interview. Click here to do you obligatory homework (you'll thank me it is fun!).


LTP: David, thanks for joining! Give us the quick background on your Northwestern experience under Gary Barnett.

DH: Gary hired me in June of 1994 as the defensive graduate assistant. At the time I was a Head High School coach in New Jersey at Dwight Englewood School. As a GA I broke down all of the opponents’ offenses and worked with Jerry Brown and the Defensive Backs. I received my Master’s Degree while on the staff in Social Policy - Higher Education Administration. After the fall of 1996 my time as a graduate assistant expired (the positions are limited to 3 years) and Gary was kind enough to let me look for coaching positions for a while but held the Director of Football Operations position for me if I wanted it. After realizing I would be lucky to end up at a 1-AA program I decided to stay as the Director of Football Operations. I did that from 1997-1998 until we went to Colorado.

LTP: Wow, what an amazing story in the Detroit Free Press on your "signal stealing" and the eventual 1-in-a-million reunion with the Michigan ball boys who caught on to you. Is the fact that no "cheating" accusations have arisen an indication that this is part of the football mainstream? Explain about the culture of signal stealing.

DH: Signal stealing is not quite mainstream in college football. Not many people attempt it and some even “scoff” at it, believing it is not possible. I can tell you that it is very possible and there are some programs that are excellent at doing it. There are a few programs that actually steal defensive signals and use them to call their offensive plays. Less programs attempt to steal offensive plays. I think the main reason for this is that many teams send offensive plays in with their players verbally since offense tends to substitute more than defense. But the bottom line is this: if you signal your plays in on either side of the ball and you do not attempt to disguise the signals you are at risk.

As far as a “culture” of signal stealing goes I think it is more of an “art.” Breaking down film for three years helped me be good at it. When I was doing it it was “informally” and if I figured team out it was a bonus. There are a few teams that do it as a matter of strategy and actually practice it.

LTP: The only part of the story that pissed me off was the implication that we used unfair tactics to help with the 1995 and 1996 wins. What was your reaction to this?

DH: That part of the story was a little unclear but I will clarify it for you! I was a GA in '95 and 96. As I broke down the film of Michigan’s offense in '95 I thought there was a possible tendency with the center’s non-snapping hand. I went back and checked every snap and sure enough the tendency was about 95% that when his hand was on the ground it was run and when he had it on his thigh it was pass. This was not signal stealing, this was just a tendency found way before the game was even played. But it was a GREAT help for our defense. (As a GA I was in the coaching booth for games and was not stealing signals.) This is not exactly unfair tactics on our part but more of an error on their part. Either they coached the center to do the hand thing or the kid was doing it himself and their coaches never noticed. Either way it was their own fault.

In '97 I became Director of Football Operations and was then on the sideline for the games. This was when my signal stealing career began and Michigan in '97 was when this ballboy incident occurred.

LTP: Got it. Thanks for the clarification! How do you think other Big Ten coaches would react if I asked them about whether or not they stole signals during Big Ten games?

DH: It is nice to be retired from college football. If you only knew the right questions to ask me you would get some really good answers.

LTP: C'mon! Help me out here. What am I missing?!!!!

DH: Just kidding! Seriously, if I were one of those coaches my answer would be this, “If you are dumb enough to signal your plays and not disguise them then I am going to try to use that information to beat you.”

LTP: Take us through the whole process of a play from start to finish and how you did it.

DH: If a play is signaled in it will typically have two parts: First is the personnel signal (who they are putting in the game for that play). Second is the play and it comes in three phases: 1) Formation 2) Motion 3) the play. I would just focus on the last part of the signal, the play, and take it from there. If I thought I had it I would just start yelling and maybe get some of the sideline guys to yell with me. Once I had a team pretty good I would tell the defensive players on the sideline to listen for me.

LTP: Were you surprised how easy it was - don't most teams use decoys? How did Michigan differ from others??

DH: Some teams use decoys but you can get around them with a few techniques. One is I would just stand on our sideline directly behind the opposing QB and look at who he was looking at during the signal. Other times the decoys were pretty bad and still signaling after the QB already looked away and went to the huddle. But sometimes a team would have one signal caller, usually an assistant coach who wore a bright colored sweater, and life was pretty darn good then. One time in the Big 12 I had a team so down and they even knew it. Instead of trying to disguise the signal they just tried to run plays out of crazy formations. They signaled in an option play so I yelled option to the defense. They line up with 4 wide outs, the QB in gun with the tailback off set and I remember one of our coaches saying to me “Well you got this one wrong!” Sure enough they ran option out of that formation and we stuffed them for a 3 yard loss. Michigan actually did a nice job that day going to three signal callers and they kept changing who the live caller was. I definitely give them credit.

LTP: This is crazy. The running joke in Michigan circles goes something along the lines of "If 110,000 fans knew what Lloyd Carr was going to run on every play, what is the big deal here? David Hansburg is no different than every Michigan fan." However, the DFP article referenced your prowess worked against Sparty as well. To what degree of success did you have with other teams? Can you give some examples of other "tells" that set you off to be able to know run vs pass?

DH: Better than run vs pass is that I could often tell the EXACT play or even if it was a pass to the tight end or a rocket screen or a draw. We played San Jose State once at CU and we were able to alert our defense to a rocket screen that we then picked off for a touchdown. I once even heard an opponent’s QB yell to his coaches while in shotgun before the snap. He yelled, “They know the play!!!!” but there was nothing he could do. Of course I have been totally wrong too and that isn’t really a fun moment.

LTP: Obviously you were part of the amazing run at NU and even followed GB to Colorado. Can you take us through your gameweek involvement with GB?

Gary was an amazing game week preparer. He never pretended to have all of the answers and always relied upon his assistant coaches and even players to help better prepare the team. We NEVER prepared for signal stealing. We prepared as if we would not have the signals. If I could get them it was a bonus and if I couldn’t then so be it.

LTP: So, what you're saying is the Northwestern success of the Barnett era was all the coaches and players, right?

DH: I want to be very clear that I do not think my signal calling ever actually won a football game. Did it sometimes help our defense? Yes. But our special teams and offense still had to do their parts and our defense still had to execute no matter what. There were many games where teams did not even signal plays so I could not help at all. Our players ultimately won the games or lost the games. I want to be crystal clear that the players and the coaches deserve all of the credit for the awesome successes we had at NU while I was there!! I hope Wildcat fans appreciate how hard it was to win the Big Ten championships of the 90s and also how amazing it was for Coach Walker and Coach Fitz to continue the success!

LTP: Got it. How much do you follow the Cats today? Your thoughts on the program?

DH: I am a huge Cats fan. I might not know all of the player’s names but it is one of the games I watch on TV and if I can’t get it I check the score on the net during game day. I know Pat Fitzgerald and Stacey very well and we coached together in Idaho for one very long year. As a matter of fact, when my awesome wife Holly was in labor with our first child, Paxton, Stacey sat in the hospital room with us ALL NIGHT! The Fitzgeralds are special people to our family and I talk to Pat several times a year.

Jerry Brown is also a man I admire greatly. He has amazing values and loyalty that you rarely see anymore in college football. I speak with Jerry every now and then too.
I believe that Northwestern is a very special program for very special people. People have no idea how hard it is to succeed in football there because you can only recruit 10% of the talent pool due to the academic standards! But I believe that is how it should be. When the Cats walk off the field with a win people need to understand just how hard it is to win! I was absolutely devastated when we didn’t make a bowl game last season with 6 wins.

LTP: Finally, we all know about the Pats and Spygate, but do you think/know of DI teams that were taping and using the info for gaining an edge?

DH: Honestly I have never heard of a team trying to videotape signals in college. Of course that does not mean it is not happening!!

LTP: David, thank you for your time. I truly appreciate it. I invite you to join in the comments section as I'm sure fans will have many more questions for you. Best of luck!