Mel Tucker is entering Year 2 of his tenure at Michigan State, but he’s still holding onto lessons he learned from his playing career.

Tucker was recruited by two legendary coaches, Barry Alvarez and Nick Saban, out of high school. Alvarez and Saban had just started their jobs at Wisconsin and Toledo, respectively. He ended up choosing the Badgers.

At Big Ten Media Days this week, Tucker gave some insight into lessons he learned from Alvarez.

“I was from Coach Alvarez’s first recruiting class in 1990,” Tucker said. “We were 1-10, 5-6, 5-6 in the Rose Bowl. I learned from Coach Alvarez how to build a program from the ground up and be relentless in that pursuit and resiliency. Coach Alvarez gave us T-shirts after our first season, after our 1-10 season, that said, We Will Win. And he told us, You better wear them on campus. He made us wear those T-shirts. He had a process. He believed in it. He was resilient and relentless, and we were table to get it done and the rest is history. That’s what I learned from Coach Alvarez.”

Saban didn’t win Tucker’s recruitment, but he still left an impression on Alvarez.

“Coach Saban, I’ve known him since I was 17,” Tucker said. “He recruited me when he was the head coach at Toledo where my dad played. I got a call from Coach Saban when I came home from, came home one day from high school, picked up the phone, said, Hey this is, Hey, boy, this is Coach Saban from the Houston Oilers. I’m, like, Houston Oilers? I’m still, I’m a senior in high school. He said, I just got the job at Toledo and, where your dad played, and you’re one of my top recruits, and that’s when I got to know Coach Saban. I knew at that time that he was very, very special.”

By the time Tucker was done playing, Saban had already moved on to Michigan State. Saban hired Tucker to be a graduate assistant for the Spartans in 1997.

“So what I learned from Coach Saban, I learned how to coach,” Tucker said. “I learned how to coach. I learned how to recruit. He told me the first day, he said, Listen, the best players don’t necessarily make the best coaches. Oftentimes the best players are not the best coaches. You’re going to have to learn how to coach. You’re going to have to learn how to recruit. If you pay attention you’ll do fine.

“So I listened to everything that he said. I wrote everything down. I was a sponge. He’s a great teacher, a great motivator. And a great developer of not just players but also of coaches. I’ve learned, he gave me my start and he laid the foundation for me and this is year 25 for me.”