What I Got from Interning as a Head Strength & Conditioning Coach

Call it intuition or just being realistic, but somehow I knew that the only way I was going to get Division I experience as a strength and conditioning coach, was to volunteer. It seems crazy to me that this is still the same advice I give over and over again to young men and women who want to immerse themselves in the profession. You are not getting a job without experience, so the only way to get experience is to volunteer. Most (not all) undergraduates have figured that out and head strength and conditioning coaches have banked on that fact, as well. College strength and conditioning is one of the most competitive fields for unpaid internships. As I've (and many others) have written before, it is a simple supply and demand issue. One of the reasons I feel comfortable giving internship advice to other coaches is two-fold.

1. We have had a comprehensive internship program at a Division III school in which we had to overcome some additional obstacles to do so.
2. I have sacrificed a lot to participate in two internships myself. So, I have seen the process from both sides.

The first internship I did was at the University of Tulsa during the summer of 2004 and the second at The Ohio State University during the summer of 2007. Both were instrumental to my development as a coach, not because of where I was, but who I was with. The internship with the Golden Hurricanes was the turning point in my career and for all the right reasons. Summer in Oklahoma In the Spring of 2004, I applied to an unpaid internship posting on footballscoop.com which turned into a phone interview with Rusty Burney and Josh Stoner when they were assistants at Tulsa. I applied because they offered housing and ended up getting offered the position. By the time packed up everything I had, drove 11 hours to Tulsa to move into a dorm room, Stoner had left for Missouri with Pat Ivey and the new head strength and conditioning coach for the Golden Hurricanes, Shawn Griswold, had only arrived a few weeks before me. It is always an interesting situation when you inherit assistants and interns you didn't hire. I could relate to his situation. So here I am, living in a dorm room at another university a time zone away as the defensive coordinator, head strength coach, and physical education instructor at Denison. I was on a 10 month contact and decided that interning at another school was the right decision. I had no idea at the time, but I was right about making the move. That summer, I finalized our defensive and special teams playbooks, worked on my second masters, and started to learn what a strength and conditioning coach should be. Three Lessons I Learned from Griz Shawn Griswold is a great mentor and friend. He taught me so many things about being a coach. I only interned for him for one summer over a decade ago, but we remain close. I know some of the obstacles he has faced in his professional and personal life and I hope I can always be there for him like he has been for me. Back in 2004, the best thing he could have done for me was be highly demanding. Here is three of the best lessons I have learned as a strength coach.

1. Consistent Demeanor

To me, this is a combination of tact and attention to detail. Since the first is common sense and the latter is very obvious as character traits of a coach; the combination of both will set some coaches above others. Consistency in the way you act as a coach is such an important, yet overlooked, aspect of the job. No one was a bigger offender of inconsistency than I was. Maybe it was me trying to intimidate athletes or my desire to play some sort of mind games with them; but I really doubt my athlete knew what version of Coach Watts they were going to get that day. What I learned is that none of the "in-your-face", motivation by intimidation, or who yells the loudest works when coaching grown men and women. In reality, it doesn't work for any age group. The techniques my drill instructors used on me at Paris Island to save my life had no place in a college coach's toolbox. Think about the emotional state of young people, specifically college freshman. Their lives are filled with academic, athletic, and social ups and downs that they can't even keep straight in their own heads. With all of the external factors from academic stress, relationships, homelife, etc., a college student's life is far from consistently at baseline. In an emotionally rocky sea, the strength coach has to be the rock, they have to be the beacon to get that athlete back to where they need to be from a mental and emotional standpoint. Adding more inconsistency in an already hectic stage of life, is not helpful. Griz was always consistent with the athletes. Never to high, never to low. He is one of the few coached that I've met that can be unapologeticly demanding and compassionately understanding at the same time.

2. Unapologetic

This will sound like we made mistakes and treated athletes poorly and felt no regret. Nothing can be further from the truth. Being unapologetic doesn't mean having no remorse. In the strength and conditioning world it simply means not being afraid to do your job. When a coach is hired as a strength and conditioning coach, he or she assumes one of the most conflicted roles in athletics. A strength coach must be loyal to every sport coach regardless of their philosophy and culture while still be the individual athlete's biggest advocate. A strength coach much protect the athlete even if it hurts the team. At the same time, the strength coach is on the front-lines of the de-individualization process of indoctrinating the coddled into the good-of-the-program mentality. It is not an easy balance and is unique to strength coached and athletic trainers (to a point). Griz had a set of consequences is young men and women would choose selfishly and miss a team training session. For example, if you missed Friday's workout, Monday would become very challenging and to me (and anyone with a half-a-brain) would agree. When Monday morning rolled around, the athlete would:

1. Push a rubber bumper on a rubber floor for 150yds (first offense)
2. Perform Monday's Speed Session
3. Perform Monday's Lower Body Strength Session
4. Perform Friday's Upper Body Session
5. Perform Friday's Conditioning

As I eluded to in the previous section, he never took it personal (thus, neither did the players), he never got mad, and he would forget it happened immediately after.

3. Loyal

Every coach I've ever met talks about loyalty being a "two-way street." Most of the time, they are saying that when disgruntled and not feeling the same as the cliche. Nonetheless, most coaches know this about loyalty, but few ever experience it. I had the opportunity to know what this meant during my first internship. Maybe the most important aspect of coaching I learned was about how to get athletes to respect your assistants. The answer was simple: Show respect to your assistants in front of your athletes and you have done a tremendous service to yourself, your assistant, and your program. How you treat your coaches and interns in front of the athletes is how you achieve universal and reciprocal respect within your program. I would be lying if I said I have always done this with my interns and it eats me up to think about it. I honestly believe that the main reason I was able to build a rapport with the athletes at Tulsa was how Griz treated me in front of them. When he ripped my ass for me doing a subpar job, it was just him and I. That, to me, is an essential element in staff development, and forging meaningful trust in a program. The mistake that head coaches often make it to try to establish intellectual dominance by position-centered leadership. This really doesn't make much sense for several reasons.

1. Treated assistants like inferiors undermines their message, which is essentially, your message. You actually sabotage your own coaching.
2. Treating assistants poorly discredits your own judgement. Why? Because you hired them.
3. Treating assistants like they are not on the same level as you give the impression you are a poor communicator and leader. This is just my opinion, but if you walk in the weight room at a university with a good staff, you shouldn't be able to tell who the head coach is. Everyone on the same page and
   
   no individual ego bigger than the program's ego.

Any Challenge After that summer at Tulsa, I learned some very important things:

• I knew I has going to ask my wife to marry me after being away from her that summer.
• I figured out how to fit 12 dragging sleds, straps and plates into one golf-cart
• I knew the exact ratio of ice, water, and powder to make weightgainer with a paint mixer.
• I found out you can perform 4-way manual neck on an entire team in one session by yourself
• I got some great ideas on how to cover a 3x1 set in quarters coverage.
• I started to understand what being a strength and conditioning coach is all about.

I owe my career to guys like Shawn Griswold and what he has done for me goes above and beyond the confides of a collegiate weightroom. I firmly believe that all young coaches should intern (even the 30-something year-olds that are already head strength coaches), and hope they find the right mentor in the field.

1. Be consistent with your demeanor and make sure you are always the coach your athletes expect.
2. You owe it to your athletes to challenge them and hold them accountable for everything they do.
3. How you treat other coaches in front of athletes is ultimately how you can show the utmost professional respect.

---

Articles by Mark Watts

Olympic Lifting for Athletes: Using Static Holds to Improve Technique

Head Games: Training the Neck to Reduce Concussions

The Fastest Sport on Ice: Things You Don't Know About Bobsled

Tips to Crush the Combine Tests

An In-Season Training Guide for Baseball Pitchers

Individual Training in a Team Setting

Off-Season Training for Football (with 8-Week Program)

What is Really Wrong with Strength and Conditioning

How Do You Get Athletes Fast?

The Last Sports Performance Podcast

Olympic Lifting for Athletic Performance

Sports Performance Coach Education Series

WATCH: How to Find a Strength and Conditioning Job

WATCH: Becoming a Mentor to Young Coaches

WATCH: The Four-Step Coaching Process

WATCH: 5 Strategies to Perform More Work in Less Time

WATCH: Why Communication is Key to a Better Coaching Career

WATCH: A Better Way to Train High School Athletes

WATCH: How to Implement Auto-Regulatory Training in a Team Setting

WATCH: Pre-Workout Circuits to Optimize Training Time and Maximize Performance

WATCH: Hypertrophy Circuits for Athletes in a Team Setting

Coaches Clinics

WATCH: Two Bench Press Mechanical Drop-Sets for Hypertrophy

WATCH: Two Lateral Speed Drills with Bands to Improve Change of Direction

WATCH: Adjusting the Glute-Ham Raise to Optimize Your Training

WATCH: Basic Linear Speed Acceleration Drills in a Team Setting

WATCH: Kettlebell Training for Team Sports

---

Mark Watts' Articles and Coaching Log

Tweets by @Coach_MJDubs