Scot Loeffler and Danijela Tomic Share Tight Bond That Goes Beyond Coaching
Noah Tylutki, Strategic Communications Coordinator
11/21/2024
As the BGSU volleyball team prepares to host the MAC Tournament this weekend and the Falcons continue to make a push for the MAC Championship in football, learn more about the bond head coaches Danijela Tomic and Scot Loeffler have for each other and their programs.
THE STAGE WAS set inside Western Michigan’s University Arena on the night of Nov. 20, 2023, for the MAC Volleyball Tournament Championship.
Bowling Green, winners of 12 of its last 13 matches, caught fire and snuck into the tournament as the sixth seed. It was looking to become just the second team in MAC history to win the conference tournament at that mark.
Unfortunately, the Cinderella story would flame out as the Falcons lost in heartbreaking fashion, 3-2, to the No. 1-seeded Broncos. A portion of the 2,142 in attendance lifted the spirits of the team that some may not have expected – BGSU football players and staff.
The Falcons were already in Kalamazoo the night before their regular season finale against WMU for a midweek MACtion Tuesday night game airing on ESPNU. They had locked up their sixth win two weeks before becoming bowl-eligible but were coming off an emotional, one-point loss to rival Toledo just seven days earlier.
Like at University Arena, members of the volleyball program were at Doyt Perry Stadium that night, embracing their Falcon counterparts.
The support for both programs alike stems from the respect and relationship head football coach Scot Loeffler and head volleyball coach Danijela Tomic have for each other, which trickles down to their respective teams.
“I always think of him as just being so thoughtful and supportive,” Tomic said of Loeffler from the night of the MAC Championship match. What he does with his actions is meaningful to me. He wanted [the program] to come and watch our team. They even gave us care packages and some sweets for a sendoff [beforehand].”
“We get each other, and we talked a little bit about the tough losses. You’re so close, and you know you’re so close, and it’s just like, ‘That’s all you can do. The breakthrough is going to happen.’”
IN THE WANING months of 2018, the BGSU football program needed a head coach who could take that leap forward. After appearing in eight bowl games during the previous 13 seasons — including a MAC title in 2013 and 2015 — the Falcons had gone 9-27 in the three years since. They released Mike Jinks from his head football coach responsibilities in the middle of the season, and the program was in disarray. Tomic was asked to serve on the search committee for the new coach and knew right away who the next leader would be for the storied program.
“He impressed me during the interviewing process,” said Tomic, recalling Loeffler. “He was very clear on his coaching philosophy and on how he would turn the football program around. He was just able to describe and express what he would do. I thought his values and his experience would be a great fit for BGSU, and after the interview, I told the AD at that time, [Bob Moosbrugger], ‘I think he’s the next head coach.’”
The new head coach needed to be someone who could complete a culture shift and change how the campus and community viewed the program. So, Tomic asked Loeffler a question during the interview about how he would deal with player drawbacks.
“He talked about how character matters to him, and the athletes he would recruit would be high-character athletes who are involved in the community and treat women with respect,” Tomic said. “That was something that stood out for me – how he talked about those issues in comparison to other candidates. What’s important to him at a human level is character. It's not just, ‘I’m going to get great football players.’ It was, ‘I’m going to recruit good guys, and we’ll help them be great football players.’”
“He said, ‘I’m going to build a program the right way. There’s not going to be any shortcuts.’ And he did it.”
The interview helped plant a seed in Loeffler that eventually germinated into a close coaching relationship that has continued strongly to this day.
“I felt the majority of the time I was talking to her,” Loeffler said about Tomic during his interview. “Her and I connected. I knew that she was a really intelligent person. I could just tell that she was a big-time coach by the questions she asked me about coaching.”
“He said, ‘I’m going to build a program the right way. There’s not going to be any shortcuts.’ And he did it.”Danijela Tomic
EARLY IN HIS tenure as head football coach, Loeffler needed to show his players and staff an on-campus example of what he wanted the culture and identity to be for his program. He looked no further than the coach he connected with during the interview and asked Tomic to speak to his team. She was fresh off leading the Falcons to back-to-back MAC regular season titles.
“I did my research when I did get hired,” Loeffler said. “I thought that I could learn from her consistency of building a championship culture and championship team and that our team could learn from it. She's a really special lady that has an unbelievable philosophy about coaching and how to do business.”
Tomic, who coached at her alma mater Arkansas-Little Rock, LSU and Florida International before landing at Bowling Green, said she had never had a football coach ask her to speak in front of their entire program. She admitted it was intimidating and humbling. Her coaching prowess allowed her to talk about what made her volleyball program successful despite not knowing much about football. However, she mentioned that three of the greatest football coaches in recent memory – Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, and Nick Saban – are all of Croatian descent, just as Tomic is.
While Loeffler was finding inspiration from Tomic, he also found comfort from her. The football program’s rebuild did not happen overnight. The Falcons were starved of a winning record until 2022, Loeffler’s fourth season as head coach. He called those first three years “the longest of my professional life.” Tomic thought all he needed was time and remained supportive. Considering all the factors and variables he had to deal with, she thinks it is “impressive” to see what he has done with the program.
“Whenever there wasn't a lot of success, I just thought she was always there for me,” Loeffler said.
During this time, Loeffler, a habitual note taker, would often write down his observations when he attended BGSU volleyball matches and share them with Tomic and his staff. Tomic even sat in one of Loeffler’s meetings to see how he and his constituents recruited players.
“It was so cool to see and to hear a coach from an outside perspective and what he noticed,” Tomic said. “Only coaches can notice those things. I believe any good coach can coach anything. They need to learn how to coach specific skills about their game, which is a learnable skill, but if you have relationships with players, you can coach pretty much any sport. There are universal principles that apply to any sport.”
“I can tell you she has an infectious personality and cares,” Loeffler said. “You can tell that she's a person that wants to learn. I'm always attracted to those types of people. She doesn't have every answer, nor do I, but she's always trying to research to better herself in the program. I have a ton of respect for her ability and urgency to want to learn.”
Loeffler learned what it meant to put the team first as a quarterback and later as a coach at the University of Michigan under Bo Schembechler disciple Lloyd Carr. The famous ‘The Team, The Team, The Team’ locker room speech uttered by Schembechler graces the halls of the building that bears his name in Ann Arbor and is a sentiment often shared amongst Wolverines.
It is a philosophy that Tomic aligns with Loeffler in their coaching styles, which have permeated throughout their programs and created winning cultures. She also believes that if there were one sentence to describe him, it would be ‘He’s a really great team player.’
One example that Tomic sees is how Loeffler and his wife, Amie, are very supportive from a financial standpoint at the volleyball team’s “Dream BiG” event and for every other female sport on campus.
“I think what is unique about Scot is I’ve never been at a school where a head football coach is so supportive of all female sports, and that’s something that means a lot to me,” Tomic said. “It just speaks of his character and being a great team player. He does a lot of stuff that benefits the whole university and the rest of athletics. He doesn’t only think, ‘What can I do for our football team?’ He’s also thinking, ‘How can I advance the university? How can I help other sports here?’ I just respect that a lot about him.”
Humility is also a key theme in the culture Loeffler has helped weave into the fabric of the football program. He acknowledges that football is an important sport on all campuses, but it is only a “small dot” of a university, and that is why the team needs to support all activities at BGSU.
“Being in a leadership role, I never wanted to think that we're bigger than the University or bigger than the athletic program,” Loeffler said. “I just wanted to be part of it. We don't want to ever look like the big man on campus. I thought that was always gross in our sport; we just want to fit in with the University. We're not bigger than anyone. That's arrogance. That's not having gratitude. Being humble and being supportive of people is what we want to be in our program.”
“Whenever there wasn't a lot of success, I just thought she was always there for me."Scot Loeffler
FIVE DAYS BEFORE the 2024 MAC Volleyball Tournament semifinal matchup, Loeffler sits atop a stool with a microphone in hand in the dimly lit side room of the Bowling Green Fricker’s restaurant. The wood-paneled walls are covered with flat-screen TVs, neon lights and even a signed jersey from Pro Football Hall of Famer Edgerrin James. Tomic sits nearby at a long table with nearly a dozen other people squeezed together like at a Thanksgiving feast.
Loeffler is wrapping up his weekly radio segment on The Falcons Nest Coaches Show with host Todd Walker, who is also perched on a stool beside him. Loeffler ends his part by giving Tomic’s team a shoutout ahead of their postseason and calls their players “savages”— a staple in his vocabulary for describing tough and sound athletes.
It is now Tomic’s turn to speak on the show.
After exchanging a hug with Loeffler between segments, Tomic previews the MAC Tournament and shares how the team prepares. As her segment wraps up, she shares a brief story from their home match against Ohio a few days prior.
An ardent fan in BGSU’s Ziggyville student section made an artificial noise by banging a cowbell during a serve, which is not allowed during matches. The Ohio coach and a referee told the fan that he was not allowed to make the noise and was “almost thrown out by the official.”
That fan was Loeffler.
“We need more cowbell,” Tomic said, referencing a line from the famous Saturday Night Live skit, “More Cowbell,” as the small Fricker’s crowd erupted in laughter.
While Loeffler might not have been banging the cowbell as frantically as Will Ferrell was, it is the thought of support amidst a busy and hectic fall schedule that shows how loud his actions speak.
“It’s just mutual respect,” Tomic said. “He’s an honest and hard-working person with great character and values. We are kindred souls in that we say what’s on our minds, and there is no BS with us. I’m one of his biggest fans because of how much he cares, how much he gives and how hard he and his staff work.”
“What he stands for is what’s right about college athletics, and we are lucky to have him as our head football coach.”
