Three Texas Christian University power brokers – Sonny Dykes, Daniel W. Pullin and Victor J. Boschini, Jr. – spent much of a fall day last year visiting alumni, families and potential donors. Conversation flowed freely among the friends between stops on their tour. 

At one point, Dykes was asked if he would consider temporarily putting down his whistle as head football coach and teaching a class. After all, Chancellor Pullin and Chancellor Emeritus Boschini have both led a classroom in the TCU Neeley School of Business. 

Dykes said that, sure, yeah, he would do that. Pullin and Boschini apparently were delighted. 

“Of course, I didn’t think anybody would follow up,” Dykes said. “Of course, they did.” 

Dykes was joking after his second evening session of Leadership in Action: From the Gridiron to the Boardroom, a Neeley class scheduled to meet every Monday of the spring semester. Dykes is a little busy in the fall. 

Twenty-five students, none of whom were TCU student-athletes, spent just under the allotted three hours of class time at the Steve and Sarah Smith Entrepreneurs’ Hall to learn about leadership. The goal is for students to define what leadership is and to craft their own way to lead. 

“In any context, business or sports, leaders must simultaneously inspire people and help them develop and execute the skills needed to succeed,” said Lisa Schurer Lambert, a Neeley professor and chair of the management and leadership department. “Neeley students can benefit from seeing how Coach Dykes has used these principles in football and then apply them to learn to lead others in business.” 

The Starting Lineup
In this particular class, students were treated to a panel of three leaders who have undoubtedly obtained some of these skills: TCU quarterbacks Max Duggan ’22 and Ken Seals, as well as Shane Buechele, former star quarterback at Southern Methodist University. All three played under Dykes, who felt they could give the students guidance on how to be great leaders someday. Similar to any company CEO, all eyes are on the quarterback. 

The three quarterbacks started as true freshmen. Eighteen-year-olds leading players four or five years older, some who had even started families. Duggan called it “being thrown into the fire.”  

Along the way, all three lost their starting jobs and faced other forms of adversity. Each figured out his own way to be a strong leader – treating people the right way, being prepared no matter their role, having self-confidence and setting the standard for how the team should compete and behave. 

“This is all stuff you’ve got to think about,” Dykes said. “The more you think about it ahead of time, the more prepared you are when you’re in the fire. That’s the goal for all these guys. When they’re on their first job interview and something bad happens or they’re in charge of something for the first time and somebody doesn’t do what they’re supposed to, how are they going to react? I think that’s the hope – that they can take these parallels with football and be able to apply it to their real-world stuff.” 

Sophomore Dhilan Patel is pursuing a bachelor’s in business administration and appreciated the leadership similarities.  

Lead the Right Way
“Coach Dykes is an incredible teacher and a motivator, and then just being able to have the network of those guys to bring back in,” he said. “I think, at the end of this semester, we’re going to walk out of here knowing how to lead the right way and how to be successful in the business world.” 

Seals and Buechele shared their hard paths to success. Both were essentially fired from their positions and had to find another one. Seals transferred to TCU from Vanderbilt, and Buechele landed with Dykes at SMU after leaving the University of Texas. He has now spent the past five seasons in the NFL. Duggan lost his starting job before his senior season but stayed with TCU and ended up taking over in Game 1 and leading TCU to a College Football Playoff Fiesta Bowl victory and an appearance in the National Championship game. Duggan also won the Davey O’Brien Award and finished second in Heisman Trophy balloting that 2022 season. 

“I felt like, even though my role wasn’t the starting quarterback, just embrace your role,” said Duggan, who now plays for Toronto in the Canadian Football League. “You can still be a leader. You can still have influence. A lot of it is through your actions as well. 

“A lot of people say they ‘lead by example.’ You can lead by example through your actions. In my case, it was always try to be the most competitive person. I think that I always tried to set the standard for the guys, and hopefully I built up that reputation.” 

Seals tried to build relationships and prepare like he was the starter so that he would be ready whenever opportunity knocked. That happened in the 2025 Alamo Bowl in late December, when he became the starter after Josh Hoover transferred. Seals stepped in and led the Frogs to a 30-27 overtime victory over the University of Southern California. 

Because of the foundation he laid, the rest of the team rallied behind him.  

“There are different things that I learned [at Vanderbilt] that I took with me to TCU,” Seals said. “I had been a starter, I had been a backup, I had been injured, and I’d been third-string. And each of those is a different role and requires different things to do each time. Not at all times are you required to be a leader, and I think I understood when it was time for me to be a relationship guy, build confidence with guys who are playing on the field and help them to achieve their highest levels.” 

The players were peppered with questions, and they told Dykes they were surprised that the students were actually taking notes and absorbing what the players had to say. 

“I learned what it’s like to try and lead when you might not be the guy, with Ken Seals being like, ‘You’ve got to own your place,’” Patel said. “Sometimes you’re going to get passed up for promotion, but you want to stay on the same drive, in the same way, on the same path.” 

Interesting Parallels
Students will be graded on class participation and a final project and presentation. Dykes said that they nailed their first assignment, and he saw the participation aspect grow in the second class. 

Sophomore Valeria Gonzalez said she took the Boschini-led course in the fall and wanted to follow it up with another prominent leader. She recently declared leadership as her minor to pair with her focus on finance. 

She said that a recurring topic in her business classes has been how to build character, and she particularly liked hearing the quarterbacks say one of their goals was to make others around them better. 

“It’s interesting seeing the parallels, whether that’s a different organization, a sport or just an extracurricular,” Gonzalez said. “I think it’s going to be nice seeing how that correlates with football.” 

Patel and Gonzalez said that they came to TCU because of Neeley, one of the top-ranked business schools in the country. Neeley prides itself on offering unique perspectives and opportunities for students, and the Dykes course fits the mold. 

Dykes calls himself an open book, never shy about the obstacles he’s faced in a coaching career that started at Monahans High School in West Texas and included a stop at Navarro Junior College for $288 a month. He’s won conference championships and bowl games, and he has also been fired. 

He poked fun at himself for getting ejected from TCU’s 2024 game at SMU but then told students that the moment made him realize he needed to be better as a leader. Dykes is still learning and evaluating at age 56, and now he’s imparting his knowledge to students half his age. 

“At Neeley, we take pride in developing future leaders who can thrive in complex and diverse circumstances,” said Lambert, a professor whose research includes person-environment fit, in addition to leadership. Incidentally, the department chair earned her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where TCU Football secured its season-opening victory on national television this year. “Coach Dykes’ class on leadership is one meaningful way of preparing our students for future challenges.” 

-Jeff Wilson ’97