MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama assistant football coach Larry Warner sat down with USAJaguars.com to answer five questions entering his first season as a member of the Jaguar staff.

An All-American running back both at the National Junior College Athletic Association and NCAA Football Championship Subdivision levels — accomplishing the feat at Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C. and Southern Illinois, respectively — Warned first coached at Carbondale (Ill.) High in 2009 after receiving his undergraduate degree from SIU.  He was a graduate assistant for the Salukis from 2010-11, returning to the program as a full-time assistant during the 2014 and '15 campaigns.  Over the last two seasons, Warner was a member of first-year South head coach Steve Campbell's staff at Central Arkansas, helping the Bears go 20-4 overall during that span while making back-to-back NCAA FCS playoff appearances.

1: What led to your decision to become a football coach?
LW: I think it came in high school when I was playing because of what my coaches did for me, as a young athlete trying to develop as a person they were the centerpiece of my life.  For me to have an opportunity to give back to kids, some who may have struggled and gone through the same things I went through, that was the biggest factor in the decision for me to become a football coach.

2: What is your coaching philosophy, and which mentor has played an influential role in your professional development?
LW: My coaching philosophy is being hard-nosed with a lot of energy and just playing hard for the love of the game; that came from all the coaches I have been around.  Especially Coach Campbell, playing for him and being around him and his way of going 100 miles per hour all the time and playing with an edge.  Being around Jerry Kill at Southern Illinois, he was a hard-nosed, lunch-pail packing coach who just wanted effort every day and to always be consistent and never satisfied.  Those two guys were the centerpiece in developing my coaching philosophy.

3: What are your goals for the program and how do you go about accomplishing them?
LW: My goal is just being successful.  The way to go about accomplishing that is to do what we have always done, which is buying in and believing in being successful, working hard every day, never settling and never being satisfied with just being good.

4: If you were not a football coach you would be a ___, and why?
LW: If I wasn't a football coach I think would want to run my own daycare center.  I love kids and being around them, and having two kids something I enjoy is just being a father running around having fun.  I'm still a big kid who enjoys life, and want to give kids the opportunity to have that freedom and a place to go to learn and have fun at the same time.

5: What is the most interesting personal fact about you that can't be found in your bio?
LW: That I am afraid of pretzels.  I know it's weird, but something inside me when I see a pretzel makes me feel uneasy.

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—USA—