Tyson Helton is Tennessee Vols' chair-throwing, swamp-fishing offensive coordinator

His father calls them confrontations. His mother calls them discussions.

Whatever you dub the dialogue, it’s the verbal back and forth that Tennessee offensive coordinator Tyson Helton and his mother, Pam, enjoy.

“He’s a debater,” said Kim Helton, Tyson's father. “He doesn’t mind you proving that you believe what you believe. You may or may not change his mind, but he doesn’t mind having a discussion, conversation or confrontation, whatever you want to call it.”

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And the man Jeremy Pruitt put in charge of UT’s offense knows how to motivate players, too.

“He doesn’t coach with his hands in his pocket, I can assure you,” said Pruitt, who has not allowed assistant coaches to speak to the media, making Helton unavailable for an interview for this story. “He’s out there getting after them.”

How Tyson Helton lights a fire in players

Western Kentucky’s players got to the point where they knew what was coming. That didn’t stop them from getting fired up by Tyson Helton’s pregame speeches.

Before the Hilltoppers took the field, their offensive coordinator whipped them into a frenzy.

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“He’s the best motivational speaker I’ve ever been around, even to this day,” said NFL offensive lineman Forrest Lamp, who played two seasons in Helton’s offense at WKU.

At some point during Helton's pregame speeches, there was a better than average chance he would send a chair air bound.

“He’s just extremely passionate,” Lamp said. “He’s fiery. He’ll throw chairs. He screams. He’s somebody that, as a player, when you watch him speak right before the game, you cannot be any more pumped up. You’re just so excited to play the game, not just for yourself and your teammates, but for him. And you don’t want to let him down.”

He’s not all bluster, though.

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A coach's son, Helton played quarterback for his dad at the University of Houston.

Kim and Pam didn’t push their sons Tyson and Clay into coaching. They pursued it anyway.

After graduating Houston, Tyson went to work for June Jones at Hawaii. Jones knew Tyson from his days hanging around the Houston Oilers’ facility as a ball boy when Jones and Tyson’s father were Oilers assistants.

In Helton’s first season as Jones’ special teams and tight ends coach, Hawaii led the nation in kickoff return average.

Jones knew then what he still believes: Helton was bound for something bigger.

“He could communicate with the kids, and you have to be able to communicate,” said Jones, now a coach in the Canadian Football League. “He had a way of getting them to do their job at a high level. He’s a personable guy. He’s a sincere guy. Tennessee is lucky to have him.”

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Helton went on to coach at Memphis, where he was on staff with his brother, and at UAB, where he was on staff with his father.

Jeff Brohm gave Helton his first chance to be an offensive coordinator, at WKU.

In 2014, WKU’s first season under Brohm and Helton, the offense broke the school record by averaging 44.4 points. The next year, the Hilltoppers averaged 44.3.

“I think Jeff Brohm put the finishing touches on Tyson’s offensive career,” Kim said.

Brandon Doughty, now in the NFL, was WKU’s quarterback during the two seasons Helton was the offensive coordinator.

On game day, Doughty and Helton game-planned at the team hotel until the final moments before the team headed to the stadium.

“They’d be in the meeting room, literally up to five minutes before we left,” Lamp said, “scheming and scamming and trying to figure out any little way that we could get ahead.”

After two seasons at WKU, Tyson’s brother pried him away to be his passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Southern California.

Learning from the Houston 'Love Coach' and Pam

Kim Helton was the “Love Coach.” A former Florida offensive lineman and later a Gators assistant, Kim had a long coaching career in the college and NFL ranks.

He became the Houston Cougars’ coach in 1993. The program was starved for attention. A couple years into his tenure, after a scheduled interview to discuss football on a Houston radio station, Kim agreed to pinch-hit on the station's show during which callers rang in for relationship advice.

Kim’s straightforward guidance was such a hit that he became the show’s star. “Love Coach” was born.

“It turned out to be a nice deal for the University of Houston,” Kim said, laughing when reminded of his “Love Coach” days. “It was a little embarrassing for Houston’s head coach, but it was something that got a lot of publicity, and it got a lot of free air time for the University of Houston.”

Pam and her sons were tickled by the show, but lessons for Clay and Tyson weren’t dished out over the airwaves.

Kim and Pam’s rules for their sons were simple.

Be accountable. Be honest. Be on time. Be friendly. Help people if you can. Be a free thinker. Don’t hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it. Yes means yes, no means no, and come here means come here.

“We weren’t trying to fool them as far as giving them too many boundaries,” Kim said.

Clay, who is entering his fourth season as USC’s coach, is the inward son, an analytical thinker who examines a situation before speaking with decisiveness. Tyson is passionate and outspoken.

“He was always that kid who let you know what he thought and respected his opinion,” Pam said. “Also, he had to be respectful of his mom. If he decided he was going to be right, he would do everything he could to convince me, and I would do everything I could do to convince him.”

The Heltons lived the football life, crisscrossing the country throughout Kim’s career. Pam was the glue. She kept the boys on task. Her sons started each day by making their beds.

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“My wife is probably the most consistent person you’ll ever meet,” Kim said.

And Pam loves football.

She attended as many of her husband’s and sons' games as she could. She tuned in when she couldn’t be there in person.

At one point, Kim was an assistant with the Los Angeles Raiders, Tyson was in high school in Los Angeles and Clay, who later transferred to Houston to play for his dad, was playing at Auburn.

That meant three straight days of games.

“I felt like I’d been beat by a stick by Monday morning after going through three ballgames that you were supportive of,” Pam said. “It was fun, but it was nerve-wracking.”

It got more nerve-wracking when the Heltons were on opposing sidelines. During one three-year stretch, Tyson and Kim were assistants at UAB and Clay was on staff at Memphis. Members of the same conference, they played annually.

“That’s really hard as a mom. Who do you root for to win?” Pam said. “It made me so sick I couldn’t even go (the first year).”

The place where Tennessee Vols OC gets away

If Tyson wasn’t a football coach, he’d be in a business related to fishing or being on the water, his parents figure.

Kim and his sons bonded over hunting and fishing.

Every summer, Tyson and Clay and their families gather at Kim and Pam’s house in Everglades City, Fla. That’s southwest Florida. Swamp country. A place where summers are hot and show why some people joke that mosquitoes are Florida’s state bird.

For the Heltons, it’s the perfect spot to reconnect — and fish.

They navigate a maze of water and mangroves just off the coast, fishing for snook, redfish and trout. Kim and his sons preserve one day to themselves, setting out as a trio to cast and chew the fat.

“They’re fun to be with,” Kim said. “There’s nothing they can’t do with a rod and reel. … People who don’t fish don’t realize. Some people think to fish, you just drop it overboard and it goes down deep and you wind the thing up. But that’s not what we do. We are a back-country casting, artificial-lure-working, all of the above.”

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At the end of each day, everyone crowds into Kim and Pam’s home.

“There’s no options not to get to know one another again,” Pam said.

It's not a bad spot for Tyson to drum up a debate, either.

“Mom usually won them in younger years,” Pam said. “Now, I think he values my opinion and his dad’s, and he listens, but he’s his own man.”