First, can you tell me a bit about what you’re up to now?
I had a blog I was working on – it was like my journal really on my thoughts and interest in sports performance. I had that interest since I was 12 – when I started wrestling. I realize now sports performance was more of an obsession for me than a profession.
Wrestling was so important to me because it showed me that the little things were so important – what you did off the mat mattered more than what you did on it.
So, the website captured those thoughts that I felt at the time were powerful. I decided to take time away from the trenches to write more and to be with my kids.
What was the injury from?
Well, first of all my kids are like traffickers for germs – I’ve never been this sick before until I spent so much time back with them! I moved back to North Carolina to focus on my kids after being away so much as a coach. When I did that I tried to be Super Dad! I’ve been doing a lot of sports with them and got too ambitious. I ended up breaking any femur skateboarding!
In a weird, sadistic way it was a blessing. Before this I thought I had compassion for athletes but now I see you can’t fully understand what they go through. Especially guys who go through this then go back and play the sport. The pain is brutal.
I had a goal of doing Iron Man competitions with my kids but the injury was a slap in the face. That’s not a reality any more. I realize now that if I do go back into sports performance, handling that subset of athletes that are going through this -which is really most football players at some point – I will have more compassion for these guys. Many of them are just kids too who are already going through a lot.
Did you have mentors when you were starting out?
I had some – good and bad. John Gamble – he was in the Worlds Strongest Man competitions – an elite level guy in power lifting. He and Eric Ciano were both powerful for me in developing as a coach.
John’s ability to connect with people was remarkable. Guys would come back after lifting to talk with him – I hadn’t seen that before. That was good for many of them to unload some of their other stressors. Being that kind of outlet was another facet of being a coach that I learned from him. Helping out with that is as big as helping out the guys in the weight room.
You’ve worked across sports – football, basketball…. Do you train by role/position according to their individual asks or is it more generalized?
That’s a beautiful question because the answer is upgrading over time. With the study of genetics and other stressors, training is now focusing on preventing things you may have a genetic disposition for.
You also specialize on things like the surface you train on and the shoes you use. Do those shoes relate to an injury you’ve had – has that injury changed your gait and the shoes you should now be wearing? Each facet can now have a whole dissertation written on what direction to take.
Technology has helped us to focus on specific demands of the body. And now we talk about focusing on what schemes coaches run and how to train around that. A new scheme may mean training a player differently.
How do you handle the fact so many train away from teams? How do you regulate that and how much of a hybrid type approach does that force you to have?
You said something powerful here. I spoke about this with Garrett Giemont {Steelers Conditioning Coordinator} and Marcel Pastor {Steelers Head Strength and Conditioning Coach}. It used to be one consistent environment that all players would share together. Now that has all changed. It’s a fluid approach now.
Athletes at this elite level, they are making business decisions off of their bodies. So paths become more individualized. Which is the right approach? We’re investigating this in real time. But when they are together as a group you can work with them one-on-one as well. It’s a tough and complex issue.
You have a preference?
I would choose group cohesion. We’re social beings and I think it’s important for guys to be together. Especially after these past few years. The energy you get when you’re all together is unreal. It’s powerful.
I was speaking to Joe Harris in Brooklyn about this when he was coaching with the Nets. He said that sharing the ball was important. That the ball was energy and the more people that touch it the more energy it creates.
I think it’s the same in training. That gravity of energy builds when you train together and that transfers over into each person’s individual performance.
What brought you to Pittsburgh?
Honestly, Pittsburgh was a savior for me. The opportunity was given to me as an act of kindness by Garrett and Marcel. I made a mistake as a young man when I was in Buffalo. I had ambition and an attitude that I could be at the top of the conditioning staff in Buffalo. I had been there eight years and through a number of staff changes. I saw a number of staff and friends leave – many who got promotions. I took a chance and interviewed with another team while I was under contract – a faux paus.
I thought I had a done deal but it fell through. The deal went South. I had some connections with the coaches in Pittsburgh and they gave me a shot out of their good graces. Garrett evidently has been doing that for coaches for some time – helping them to find jobs. It’s a difficult business wearing the NFL emblem – you can’t take it lightly. I was thinking of my own accomplishments instead of the institution as a whole.
I was given a shot to work there for a year so I could then interview elsewhere. I knew it was a one-year thing. I wanted to run my own program – I didn’t want to be an assistant. I wanted to put my craft against the fabric of real life.
At the end of that year I signed a contract to work with Exos – it was a military contract and I had to wait three months for security clearance. I didn’t realize it would take that long. As that was happening I sent my resume in for the Brooklyn Nets job and they asked me to come in for an interview. They offered me the job the same day my clearance came in!
Was there a certain approach or philosophy to strength and conditioning the Steelers had that they wanted you to follow?
Their style was very different from Buffalo’s. It was a great transformation for me and I credit Gee (Garrett). His way relied less on Olympic weights – it is less platform based lifting – less benches and dead lifts. Guys get that in college and should be pretty developed coming into the NFL.
Pittsburgh was more individualized. I was walking around with my sheet monitoring players and noticing how much more ownership players had of their regimens. We’re not robots – we have different needs, different femur and fibula lengths, different roles. All that requires more specialization. In Pittsburgh it was less templated. You had to meet the coaches half way and then do that other half too. That was a tough transition for me. You have school education and experience on the way to train people then to see how different this was was jarring. But I’m thankful for the experience.
How was it different exactly?
What they did was to accommodate players’ X-factors more – to focus on the things that made them stand out to get here.
The way they trained depended on the phase of the year too. Training camp, you decrease the training load because it’s already so much work in camp. In the offseason we provided more load and challenged players more to prepare them for camp.
The blueprint existed for everyone, but the nitty gritty things were up to the players. They chose if they wanted to do a safety or back squat or RDL. They made their own choices at that level. We more provided the general blueprint which was different than Buffalo. It was art and physics.
Any fun stories of your time in Pittsburgh?
I have goosebumps thinking about it, I always felt like you should never meet your heroes. I never watched movies based off of books I liked. I didn’t want to be let down.
Well, I had an image of Mike Tomlin and I was worried that I would be let down when I got to Pittsburgh. I wasn’t! My jaw dropped at how he galvanized men at that level. It was just exceptional.
I remember a speech he gave in New York – after it I wanted to play! And most of it isn’t about football – just good life lessons.
One thing I remember – after the flag incident in the locker room. He stood up and said that the one thing they could all agree on was the importance of children. He spoke about the importance of focusing on something they could all agree on. He just moved guys to be better people and players. He was blunt the way he delivered messages. Like his two dogs, one bone. He wasn’t afraid to be blunt and chip into an ego.
What else stood out to you about the team?
The importance that was placed on comaraderie and consistency. At OTAs the players kind of ran those. I don’t mean that disparagingly – it just showed how on point everyone was. They weren’t there installing the scheme – everyone knew what to expect already. They were already into the nitty gritty.
It looked to me like the fundamental elements were all understood by everyone before they walked in there.
And I’m not looking to elevate the Steelers – I’m likely done with football. But it really was a remarkable experience being there.
Maybe due to the stability of the staff?
That’s exactly it. It was remarkable to me – the players knew what to expect when they walked in and what to do. That enabled them to have ownership of some things and to have that comaraderie of working together and owning that process.
That comradely really stood out when Ryan Shazier was injured. The team all stood together and supported him. Ryan was such an amazing player too. They would have won a Super Bowl with him if he wasn’t injured. He was amazing to me. It didn’t make sense to me that a linebacker with his style – a “tweener” who was a linebacker the size of a safety – that he could play with the style he did. He wasn’t afraid to look for those big hits. He wanted them. To see that competitiveness – that environment – it was cool to see.
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