Last Thursday New York Times
sports page had a feature article entitled – “Two Teams Made Tough, One Drill at
a Time.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/sports/ncaafootball/08college.html?_r=1 It is an article about
the two head football strength coaches for the teams playing for the BCS national
Championship, University of Florida and University of Oklahoma. On several
levels I thought this article was a major breakthrough. Reading it I could help help but to reflect back on all the fighting, meeting and convincing that needsed to be done to to arrive at this point. Twenty years ago there were still teams without strength and conditioning coaches. The article gives recognition to
the role that strength and conditioning played in these two teams success. It served
to underscore that the strength and conditioning coach is only as good as the
support he or she receives from the head coach. In this case it was unqualified
support. The salaries these two guys received is great, for one it was over $300,000
and the other over $200,000. That’s a long way from the $30,000 to $40,000 most
people in the field are making. I hope the exposure they are getting raises the
compensation standard across the field. One key point that I think many people
may miss in reading the article is that the strength and conditioning coaching
has more contact with the players throughout the year than any other coach, so
the potential for influencing behavior and changing attitudes as wells the obvious
physical component is huge. If the strength and conditioning coach knows his
stuff and has the backing of the coach the contribution can be the difference.
