"Many moons ago, when I was a high school defensive coordinator and strength coach in Florida, I attended a seminar that was being taught by the head football coach at Miami at the time, Butch Davis. A high school coach in the audience asked Coach Davis..."
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Jim (and Mark, etc).... I've said this before, but it is like you all are mind readers.
My son is in winter training for HS football. This paragraph is exactly what I have witnessed with the boys in the gym:
"What many coaches wanted was to have the players running from set to set, yelling and screaming with lots of whistles blowing and for me to be yelling at the top of my lungs at all times, in that scratchy voice that strength coaches are supposed to have, and with those big gray trash cans set up in strategically places of the weight room to catch all of the vomit spewing out of the player’s mouths."
To Jim specifically... At FSU, from ~'88 to '00, Dave Van Halanger was the S&C coach. They team would have mat drills in the pre-spring. Conditioning boot camp. Now the team was the best program of the decade, very similar to Alabama/Clemson right now. The players and coaches all swore that mats was a huge reason for their on field success. Did Penn have something similar?
(Mats were significantly altered in 2001 (?) when a player passed away. I think he had some preexisting condition, but I am not 100% sure on that).
Thanks so much for reading!
It was similar in that it was intense. I guess that the big question is, what are you trying to get out of it? Im not sure if it makes them tougher like many folks think. I have a tendency to believe that when a kid is 19, he's either tough or not. The good thing is that each player gets tons of reps in a short period. I also think that during that time, FSU had some crazy athletes and they probably could have done many types of running and still be great. I do believe it brings the kids closer together going through it all, and weeds out some that aren't " all the way in". I just never wanted the weight training to be like that, because it defeats the purpose of getting strong. As long as the running doesn't bleed into the weight room, its probably ok. Not optimal, but ok. We just did damage control on the back end to ensure recovery.
I have read that many of the players who experienced Mats have said it was a comradery type of thing, and there was significant value they felt the got out of it. And with the success they had, I have to think it played a part. And you're right...they had great athletes who were freaks AND many of them had incredible work ethic AND most of them were exceptionally competitive.
And I'm not giving up hope that I can introduce a SSC to our coach at some point. today, my son did 12 squats at 155. that's great.....except he can do 220x5x3. (HS offseason training. I've got another thread about it here.)
Thanks for responding.