"I take that as a challenge," Fedora says of the problems that have befallen UNC. "That's part of what gets me out of bed in the morning, is the challenge in front of me.
"And I want it to happen now, right now. Not tomorrow - but now. And you know, that's part of what drives me."
The impatience is fitting, given the rhythm of Fedora's life. Everything about him is up-tempo: The way he walks, as if he's in a hurry. The way he talks, as if he's trying to get across a point before hitting an imaginary time limit. Even the way he coaches and the style of play he prefers is fast.
Everything about him moves at an accelerated pace, as if there's no time to waste.
After his introductory press conference at the University of North Carolina last month, some observers wondered whether Fedora should try decaf. But coffee isn't his drink. He goes through cases of the energy drink Red Bull the way some do bottled water.
"Yeah, I drink a lot of Red Bull," Fedora says. "I sure do. I don't know if that's a good thing, but I do drink quite a bit of it. Sugar free. I try to be healthy."
After a short pause he laughs and says, "I drink Red Bull to slow down."
Fedora's energy - his natural energy - isn't the stuff of canned drinks and caffeine. What comes from within, what drives him to be up by 5 a.m. on most days, has always been there, according to people close to him.
Learning a work ethic
With his natural energy, Fedora thrived amid an upbringing that was strict, regimented. Fedora grew up in a small college town that, like a lot of places in Texas, isn't all that close to anything. Boys want to play football at Texas A&M, in the big stadium in the middle of campus, and Fedora was no different.
But while teenagers he knew spent summer afternoons daydreaming of futures that never came, Fedora worked. His dad found him a job with a bricklayer when he was 13, and Fedora held the job each summer until he left for college.
Fedora, 49, remembers well "hauling mud and throwing bricks," he says. "And I hated every bit of it."
His friends would ride by on their bikes, going to the pool or anywhere else.
"And I just couldn't understand why I was doing that," Fedora says. "But I know the money I made in the summers carried me through the rest of the year. So I did that every year. And was fortunate to have that job and learned a tremendous work ethic back then.
"That has had a big impact on me being where I am today."
That's the way Herb Fedora planned it, though he didn't necessarily plan on Larry becoming a major college football coach. But Herb did want Larry to learn how to work. He wanted the same for all of his sons.
Larry laid bricks. Bruce Fedora worked in the cotton fields. John and Lee, the youngest of the four Fedora boys, were roofers.
"Everybody learned how to work," says Herb, 76, a retired barber who still cuts hair in a shack in his backyard, called The Redneck Barber Shop. "That was the whole thing. I think that's one of our problems right now, today. Kids don't work anymore. And a lot of times, it's because (society) won't let them work."
Herb had to take Larry before a judge when he was 13 and request a permit for his boy to work. The judge wanted to know why Larry needed to work and Herb told him, quite simply, that Larry needed to learn how to do something.
And so he did. Larry learned a lot about working during those summers. Manual labor, especially manual labor that comes outside in the Texas summer, has a way of teaching such things.
At home Larry learned plenty, too.
"Dad was pretty hard on us back then," Larry says. "Or we thought he was."
There was no sleeping in. Herb Fedora didn't tolerate laziness. The son of an orphan who had been shipped west on a train, Herb began his first job when he was 9 and left to work on the Texas railroad, among men, when he was 15. That's where he learned to cut hair, and he did that in the officers' barbershop when he went off to the Navy.
Herb's sons, all of them, turned into successes: Larry as a major college coach. Bruce as a restaurant owner and real estate man. John as the owner of a local retail clothing shop. Lee as a local high school football coach. Herb stressed the importance of competitiveness to all of them.
"Like our dad always taught us, you don't want anybody to beat you," says John Fedora, the second-youngest of Herb's four sons. "There was no, 'Everybody won.'"
Herb, who raised his two youngest sons mostly by himself after he and his first wife divorced, started Larry in a flag football league when he was 8. Herb coached the team. It might have been flag football, but there was plenty of contact. Before Larry's first game, Herb says he told him that he'd give him a nickel for each opposing player he knocked to the ground. Larry earned 35 cents.
He found something else, too, amid those coins: His passion. Larry was a well-rounded student at A&M Consolidated High. He sang in the choir. He acted in musicals. Football, though, is what drove him.
A leader takes shape
Larry first thought about becoming a coach, he says, when he was in the ninth grade. By then, Bruce Fedora, the second-oldest of the brothers, knew Larry was a bit different.
"You could tell Larry was going to be a leader," Bruce says. "He just had that 'it.'"
Bruce could tell this, he says, because Larry not only wanted to excel more than anyone else, but he wanted to put in the work to make that happen.
"He wanted to work that extra 15 minutes," Bruce says.
Larry grew up wanting to play football at Texas A&M. There was never much time, or money, to take in games at Kyle Field, but a boy didn't have to attend those for the spirit of the Aggies to consume him.
The manual labor made Larry strong. Had he been a little stronger, a little bigger, or faster, maybe he could have played at A&M. But, Larry says, "I wasn't good enough."
He went on to Austin College, north of Dallas, where he played wide receiver and was part of a national championship team his first season there, in 1981. Given the limited roster size in the playoffs, Larry didn't dress for the championship game.
"But he did what he needed to do," says David Norman, who played in college alongside Larry. Norman is now the athletics director at Austin College. "He worked hard in practice to prepare us. Larry then went on to be an academic All-America and (honorable mention) All-America.
"He's a great story in that he never got discouraged, never gave up."
After his playing days ended, there was little doubt what Larry wanted to do. He became a coach, first at Garland High in Garland, Texas. He spent five years there before an old friend called with a chance to become a graduate assistant at Baylor, under former Bears coach Grant Teaff.
Fedora and his wife moved to Waco. The job paid $400 a month. Two weeks after moving, Fedora and his wife learned their first child was on the way. Looking back, he has a difficult time explaining how they made the finances make sense.
"The Lord provided," Larry says. "I don't know. I don't know how to tell you, to be honest with you. You just make do, you know? What you don't have, you don't need. And you find a way. You just do it."
Clarence Junek, one of Larry's old high school coaches, describes Larry with a single word: "Intense."
"He was always intense," says Bill Patton, another of Larry's old high school coaches. "He wasn't a rah-rah, happy-happy type, like some of them are. He was always serious."
Junek nods.
"He had that smile that the girls liked, you know," he says. "He's a charmer. But he wasn't a loudmouth; he didn't seek attention. It was sort of a silent leader."
Man on the move
Fedora ascended quickly through the coaching ranks. He earned a permanent job at Baylor, then went to Air Force. He became an offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee State, then held the same position at Florida and Oklahoma State before becoming the head coach at Southern Miss before the 2008 season.
Along the way he earned a reputation for his high-powered, up-tempo offenses. Like everything else about Fedora, the trademarks of his offenses became their energy and quick pace.
"I know his energy and enthusiasm affected me and helped me elevate my game," says former Charlotte Independence quarterback Chris Leak, who played for Fedora at Florida. "What I liked is he will listen to your ideas, what you as a quarterback like and (don't) like ... I think that's what has made him successful. His players love to play for him."
Fedora's communication style is something out of a textbook for business leaders. Eye contact. Firm handshake. Confident tone. Smile.
Fedora flashed that smile often when UNC introduced him as its head coach. Behind the scenes, though, it was business: finishing up his final days with Southern Miss, which he led to a victory in the Hawaii Bowl, while starting his work at UNC. There was a staff of assistant coaches to build. And a recruiting plan to develop.
Fedora recognizes that his hiring was an especially important one for UNC, given all the university and the football program has endured in recent seasons.
Fedora and Bubba Cunningham, the UNC athletics director, spoke in detail about the situation before Fedora accepted the job.
"He wanted me to come in with my eyes wide open," Fedora says. "You know, I think he had already done his background on me and knew that I did things the right way. And so it wasn't like he had to tell me, 'Larry, you need to run a clean ship.' He knew that's just the kind of person I am. So that's never been a question."
Relying on faith
At Southern Miss, where Fedora was the head coach from 2008 through 2011, Fedora's program never committed a major NCAA violation. Academically, the Golden Eagles were among the strongest teams in Conference USA.
But Fedora's time there wasn't without strife. On Nov. 15, 2010, three of Fedora's players were shot during a fight in a nightclub in Hattiesburg. None of the Southern Miss players were armed and they all survived. But Martez Smith, a senior linebacker, suffered a spinal cord injury and is unlikely to walk again.
The other two players who were shot, Tim Green and Deddrick Jones, returned to play.
"That's not something that education can prepare you for," Fedora says. "I mean, there's no coaching manual on how handle a situation like that. And so you rely on your faith, rely on people that you trust - your mentors."
Fedora has had many of those in the profession. Outside of it, his greatest mentor remains his father. Herb Fedora and his oldest son speak every morning, usually before the sun rises.
When Texas A&M in December fired Mike Sherman after four seasons, there were rumors that Fedora might be a candidate to coach the Aggies. Sherman gets his hair cut at the Redneck Barber Shop, and has been one of Herb's most loyal customers for years.
"Sherman had called me when (Larry's) name got in there," Herb says. "And they were still talking about him here at A&M. So Sherman was telling me if I talk to Larry, this is what I need to tell Larry."
There was no need to tell Larry anything, though. He'd already decided to come to UNC. Since leaving Baylor at the end of the 1996 season, Fedora hasn't spent more than four years at any job.
He has been a man on the move - his energy and drive taking him from school to school. Now, as impatient as Fedora is, he's hoping he has found a place where he can stay a while - where he can build something from the ground up, like he did in his first job so many years ago.
