After a 15-year career as a strength and conditioning coach at the D-1AA and D-1A level, I made the move to the high school ranks and came to some amazing realizations about the profession and about myself. I had a great job at East Carolina University working for Jeff Connors and fellow assistants Blaine Kinsley, Aaron Walker, and Emmanuel McDaniel. We had a blast and had a pretty successful run of winning in my two and half years there.
However, I made the move to high school more for a family situation than anything. Making a move professionally is something I have done many times before, having been a coach at seven different schools, but this was different. I was going from working with D-1A talent to a small single-A private school K-12. It was eye-opening and here are some things I have learned:
1. You cannot take a college program and do it with high school kids.
This is something I already knew but really got enlightened early. In my planning I was going to take kids through long technical progressions, which is the right path to take and has worked well so far. However, our speed and agility work has also had to go through the same deal. When I started, I attempted to progress our athletes too quickly with our speed program and got very frustrated when the kids couldn’t pick up very basics movements that I am accustomed to athletes being able to perform. Once I took a step back and realized I needed to the same thing with our speed program I was doing with our lifting, things began to fall into place.
2. There are some amazing high school strength coaches.
Now I will be honest: As a “college guy,” I thought I knew a lot and the “high school guys” just weren’t as in tune with strength and conditioning as I was. Man, I was an idiot. I have had the privilege of getting to talk to and know some unbelievable high school strength and conditioning coaches like Gary Schofield, Fred Eaves, Micah Kurtz, Garrett Keith, Shawn Powell, and the list goes on and on.
The thing I learned after meeting and talking with coaches like this is that their passion is unmatched and they can coach circles around a lot of college coaches. The schedule a high school strength coach has to keep is nuts, and the external factors that go into play on a daily basis are a million times crazier than the college setting. These coaches have figured out a way to navigate all of these and be successful — and that isn’t easy.
3. External factors are the toughest thing to deal with.
I mentioned this topic earlier when talking about coaches, and now I will talk about a few of these things. Here at Strong Rock, my job is to get kids stronger, faster, and less likely to be injured. Well, that’s tough when you figure in all the external factors that go into our kids not being in our Athletic Performance class. Here are just a few of the things that take time away from our class time:
- Rush Week
- Great Day of Service
- Grandparents Day
- Travel/Club Teams
- Other classes and academic demands of a very rigorous college prep school
- Fall Break
- Christmas Break
- Winter Break
- MiniMester
- Spring Break
- Exam Weeks
- Half days that coincide with the Friday before all breaks
- Game schedules of multi-sport athletes
Anyway, those are pretty much most of the challenges, and learning how to navigate successfully through each and every one is still an ongoing process. Hopefully by my 10th year or so here I will have figured it all out, but I am sure by then we will add and remove stuff. So long story short, you just gotta keep working to find the best way to skin this cat.
4. Dealing with the year round multi-sport athlete is critical to success.
With Strong Rock only having a total high school enrollment around 260, both our female and male coaches have to share many of the athletes that walk our hallways. The most difficult thing as a strength and conditioning coach is to figure out a way to get a kid stronger and faster while an athlete is constantly in-season, with the exception of the summer.
Actually, that may not be true because so many of my kids play competitively during the summers whether it being 7-on-7 tournaments or summer league baseball or basketball. That is the main reason I have had to really work on programming and making sure I am giving the kids the right stimulus at the right time. Every time one of my kids trains in our weight room, they have a program for off-season, in-season, and game day.
5. Sport Specialization is really a sad thing for kids.
I have always felt that being a multi-sport athlete makes it harder to develop physically, from a training standpoint. However, playing multiple sports helps with many overall physical qualities that are tough to develop outside of sports. I am totally in favor of our kids playing as many sports as possible, not only for a physical development standpoint but also from an experience standpoint.
Typically, when a kid specializes in one sport, they play it almost year round, which is what I have begun to see over and over again. I have been at Strong Rock for almost three years now and each year at the beginning of the year open house I have had mothers come up to me to discuss their 7th, 8th, and 9th grade sons who have elbow problems from pitching year-round.
6. Don't complain about never having enough time with our athletes.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard college strength coaches complain about not having enough time when they get eight hours per week during the off-season. Figuring out how much training I can get in during class is something that has taken some time for me to figure out. With 90% of our training taking place during the school day, figuring out what we can do from a training standpoint is critical. On average, I have a 50-minute class period. However, I lose 15 minutes per day due to travel and changing clothes, which only give me 35 minutes typically to warm-up, train, and cool down.
These are just a few things I have figured out in my short time here at Strong Rock. I am very lucky to be coaching at Strong Rock and work with some amazing people who love The Lord and love the kids we work with. They also do a great job of supporting me and the program I am in charge of running. I am always working on developing our program to be the best for our kids to help develop them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Hopefully I am on the right path. I would love to get feedback and hear what anyone else is doing to help their kids.
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Images courtesy of Chris Whitacre
Tobias Jacobi coached 15 years at the collegiate level for Cumberland University, University of North Carolina, Elon University, Western Carolina University, Kent State University, Charleston Southern University, and East Carolina University. Currently, he is the strength coach at Strong Rock Christian School. He holds a B.S. in Physical Education and is CSCS, RSCC*D, USAW-SP, TPI-L1, and USAT&F-L1 certified.
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