As Texas Tech was preparing to play its final home football game of the season, Kliff Kingsbury’s father, Tim, weighed in on the team’s success, and the accomplishments of his son.
“I’ve been very impressed,” Tim Kingsbury said. “I think they got an awesome group of kids. We got a lot of young kids out there… I think really this year they are as much a team as I’ve ever seen them in the past few years since I’ve been coming out to watch them play.”
Kinsgbury does his best not to miss a single home game. The retired Marine, a Purple Heart winner, and a former high school football coach in New Braunfels (where he coached Kliff’s high school team), he makes the approximately 6-hour drive to Lubbock to watch the Red Raiders play at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Kinsgbury said his son’s transition from playing at Tech in the early 2000s, to his NFL career, to now wearing a headset on the sidelines, has been entertaining.
“Kliff would tell you this, it was a lot easier when he was a player, because you feel like you have more control as a coach,” Kingsbury said. “I mentioned to him the other day, I said ‘It’s a lot worse being a fan, than coaching because at least when you’re coaching you feel like you have a little control.’ He countered with ‘Well it was a lot easier when i was playing.'”
“I’m very proud that he would decide to go into that profession,” he said, of his son’s coaching efforts. “He’s always been very focused on athletics, I think he really feels like it’s his calling and he can help the kids not only become better football players but also better people, and able to become productive citizens later in life.”
Kingsbury said he wished both he and Kliff’s mom had attended Texas Tech, after visiting the school.
“The people are just unbelievable, the school is beautiful, great education, and you cannot find better people in the state of Texas than in Lubbock, Texas,” he explained.
“Kliff loves it here, he wants to be here, and [the Kingsbury family loves] having him here,” he said.
