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THE WAY TO WINNING: Besides coaching staffs and actual game day coaching, I feel the core to a successful program is its OFF-SEASON and IN-SEASON STRENGTH PROGRAMS. The bar has been raised in the last decade with respect to strength and speed programs in high school football. If you think college or pro teams work out more than high school football players, think again. With area teams ramping it up each year and trying to find an edge, some teams are putting in 12 or more hours per week just in the offseason.
How did this all come about???
In the late 70's, the staff at CB West, which I was a part of, started our first weight program. I ran the weight program till the mid 90's that became synonymous with winning. This legendary weight program gained so much notoriety that high schools and colleges consistently asked to come and visit, to find how we got such great results.
It wasn't magic...It was a power movement based program that was run with INTENSITY. We made the kids accountable for strength gains and body weight gains. We lifted three days a week for 2.5 hours a workout and if you missed one of those days, you had a Saturday morning 9 a.m. workout. Our attendance policy gave each young man two unexcused absences but have a third miss, and you were done from the weight room for the year. Believe me, we were serious, and over the years, a few of our outstanding players ending up being dismissed from the weight program but allowed to start with the team in summer camp.
Our main lifts we're Squat (knees below butt), power cleans, bench, deads and weighted dips. We did No body building lifts. It was all about lifting as much weight as you could with the proper form. I usually had three other coaches in the weight room with myself (each coach on our large staff had to give one workout a week), and we all (kids included) had a huge desire to be the area’s best football team and the STRONGEST.
Year in and out we had 12 or more players bench 300 or more with many close to 400 lbs. Our Squat, which we prided ourselves on, always had 25 or more guys squatting over 400 and 3-5 more over 500 lbs. It was a mission we all got excited about and each year’s team wanted to be stronger than the past years.
In 1994, the "Guru of strength training," Joe Hallman (presently CB South strength coach), came into our program and became our new strength coach. Joe was incredible and still is! His appearance allowed me to focus on our speed program, which was another facet of our success. Joe's innovative ways and his just being a strength coach ONLY (not a field coach) helped CB West win 90 games in seven years and three state titles.
Most teams in District One have strength programs today. How do you survive without one? The difference is the POINT MAN! The guy running the show. The enforcer, the guy who makes it exciting and impresses on the kids how getting super strong and fast will help get the "WINS "------- THE STRENGTH COACH. All of this is remiss if the head coach doesn't make it a priority that strength and speed have to be developed. It takes the same intensity he puts out on the practice field during the season to make his strength program one of the area’s BEST. SO MANY HEAD COACHES ARE NOT INVOLVED OR HAVE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT IT ENTAILS TO RUN A GREAT STRENGTH PROGRAM. Without the head coaches total backing and involvement (even by just walking the weight room floor daily), it's doomed to be an average weight program which certainly doesn't help the ON FIELD PRODUCT !
So who are the top strength coaches and strength programs in the area?
The top three, in my opinion, are JOE HALLMAN - CB South, STEVE WILMONT- Neshaminy and MARK HESS - Souderton. All these guys have plenty of things in common. They are extremely knowledgeable and very passionate about strength training. They all realize that this strength has to be functional strength that carries over to the football field. They want their kids to be explosive and to have strong joints to withstand injuries. They do a ton of ground-based lifting that uses the total body chain in achieving their results. I had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Hallman (CBS) and Souderton head coach Ed Gallagher. Here are some of their concepts and outlines of their strength programs.
Joe Hallman from CB South has his team lifts four days a week in the off season focusing on the Olympic lifts (power clean, snatch, squats and bench movements). Joe changes his program in terms of sets and reps about every five weeks and halfway through his off-season program (around April) starts STRONG MAN TRAINING one or two days a week. This consists of 300 or 500 lb. tire flips, steel logs that they clean and hoist overhead, keg tosses, car pulls and pushes and sledge hammer swats (where you swing a 22 lb sledge against a 500 lb tire for three minutes...WOW !)
Joe's quote that I firmly agree with is "my biggest squatters are my fastest kids!" In season, Joe and CB South try to increase their team strength with two lifts a week going back to the Olympic lifts. The South players look great in uniform and have been backing it up with some quality wins in the last couple years.
Ed Gallagher from Souderton spoke for Mark Hess who was in the weight room at the time with the players. Ed said that Souderton attributes a lot of their success to the great strides they've made in the weight room. Have you seen the Souderton players recently? They are slapped together. All of them look strong and can really run! They lift three times a week off season, with the Squat and Clean as their core lifts. Their goals, which are percentage based each workout, are to lift very heavy and to constantly break their old maxes with new ones.
Ed asks for a personal commitment from each kid. Like his counterpart Joe Hallman, both keep the weight room open late so that their players who are out for other sports (i.e. basketball, baseball, track) can get into the weight room on those days. Souderton's in-season program consists of 2 days a week with the objective to maintain their strength from their off-season program.
Great Strength programs breeds success. It makes you bigger and stronger, gets you faster and keeps you less susceptible to injury. It all this adds up to a winning program. MY HAT’S OFF TO THESE GREAT STRENGTH COACHES.
RECENT GAMES I SAW:
Friday night: Saw a tough, well-coached LC team play North Penn tough for the first half. NP just wore them down quickly in the second half. LC played 8,9,10 guys in the box defensively and stymied NP with some tough tackling and untimely fumbles by NP in the first half. Second half was all NP. Coach Beck decided to get the ball in Ronnie Akins hands more often (fly sweeps, fly posts, wing counters and stop pass patterns). He's a stud and knows what to do with the rock....head for six! LC's Howell at QB gave NP fits all night. Lining up in the gun, Howell would either run on a designed played or improvise on a pass play and just take off. Fast, elusive and excellent open field runner, Howell cracked the 100-plus rushing vs a tough NP defense. I fully expect LC to win a lot of games this year and get to the playoffs. NP 34 LC 12
Monday night: Saw a nice win for CB West as they played the first game on William Tennant’s new turf field. West looked good, and Tennent looked young. West had shades of old as they pounded the host team with both the fullback (Ted Conrad) and the halfback (Rashaad Williams). Only throwing two passes the whole game, CBW marched up and down the field for a 25-7 win. Congrats to coach Felton and the Bucks. It's also good to see some of my former players helping to coach the Bucks of CBW. Phil DiGiacomo, Dave Camburn and Steve Dorner, all great players in their time, have created a positive energy at that school.
EXCITING PLAYERS THAT I'VE SEEN: This week’s honor roll.
Justin Davey (North Penn) - always was a nice runner with real good speed but now has become a complete QB with great accuracy. Coach Beck will continue to put him situations he can succeed in. Davey could be the difference for NP this year in playoffs when teams stack the box to take away the run.
John Howell (LC) – 2000-yd rusher at running back in 07. Moved to QB to put a dual threat athlete at that position, and WOW, is this the right move! His great speed and open field moves make John a threat every time he touches the ball. Very good high school player and tough also!
Rashaad Williams (CB West) - sophomore running back who has burst on the scene with two good games to start this season. Extremely fast, broke Brian Scott's (present NFL player) middle school 100 meter dash record that stood for 18 years. This kid needs to continue to get stronger but has a chance to be a great one!
Ted Conrad (CB West) - senior captain who doubles as fullback and linebacker. Just plain TOUGH! Runs hard and tackles with anger.....this guy could play for the old West teams!
We'll that's it for now......send your questions to Coach Carey at suburbanonesports@comcast.net, and I'll give an honest, thick skin type of answer. Until later.......keep the hits coming! There's no game in America like high school football.
--Coach Carey