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NU looks for an edge with strength and conditioning
BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Feb 17, 2008 - 12:16:21 am CST
You see the massive weight room attached to Memorial Stadium. You see third-stringers walk out of it looking like The Hulk and it’s easy to forget how different it was not that long ago.
Boyd Epley can take you back to 1969, back when many people didn’t think football players should be lifting weights out of fear it’d make them slow.
Epley wasn’t so sure. He came from Arizona, where some people were actually using weights. He was just a kid then, an injured Husker pole vaulter trying to strengthen his body by lifting. A few football players followed his lead. Assistant coach Tom Osborne was interested.
“Pretty soon I was standing before Bob Devaney,” Epley said. “I didn’t know if I was in trouble or not.”
The Husker football coach wanted Epley to tell him exactly why he thought his players should be lifting weights. None of the other schools were doing that. Why should Nebraska?
Epley hardly was full of answers then, but he sold Devaney enough on the idea.
Remembered Epley: “He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘If anyone gets slower, you’re fired.’”
That fall Epley started on salary at $2 an hour. No one got slower, apparently.
Nebraska’s strength program would soon become the envy of schools across the country. Epley remained in charge of Husker football strength and conditioning for 34 years. He became a legend in the field and people around the program called him “Mr. Big” for his big ideas.
To go back to 1969 and see the evolution of the strength and conditioning program is now an amazing study.
Then, hardly any team had a strength and conditioning coach. Now, you aren’t going to find a big-time football school without one — well-schooled and often well-paid. Nebraska’s new football strength and conditioning coach, James Dobson, makes $130,000 a year, more even than two of the new Husker assistant coaches.
He earns every penny, coaches will tell you. Husker offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said the strength coach and academic coordinator are probably the two most important people in the program outside of the coaching staff.
“He’s the guy that’s with our players every single day,” Watson said. “Because of that, philosophically, he’s going to develop a toughness, he’s going to develop a standard of accountability. He’s going to develop a standard of expectation.”
Jeff Jamrog, NU assistant athletic director for football operations, went another step.
“The hiring of a strength coach is as important as the offensive and defensive coordinators,” he said.
The heavy responsibility of the position is why many head coaches now hand pick their strength coaches. Bill Callahan chose Dave Kennedy. Bo Pelini chose Dobson.
A certain level of humility must come with the position, always recognizing that you never know it all. If you ever think that, you’re probably in for a big fall.
“I think strength and conditioning is a lot like medicine,” Dobson said. “It’s ever-evolving.”
This brings to mind a story from Epley. Two decades ago, most strength coaches were having football players run long distances during training.
Jamrog, a Husker letterwinner from 1985-87, remembers Epley used to have players run 1½ miles to see if they were in shape.
But in the late ’80s, research found that football players did not need to build such an aerobic base.
Epley changed methods he had used for almost 20 years. He made all his running drills 60 yards or less. “I argued with coaches, even with coaches on the Nebraska staff. We argued every day about this. There was tremendous resistance.”
The season Epley stopped the long-distance running, Nebraska’s linemen bulked up 30 pounds per player. Dominating seasons soon followed in the mid-’90s.
“I was sometimes flying by the seat of my pants,” Epley said. “I learned from mistakes.”
Epley, now working for the National Strength and Conditioning Association in Colorado Springs, Colo., believes a lot of coaches still get it wrong today in the aerobic drills they make players do.
But he likes what he’s heard about Dobson. “I look for him to get Nebraska back on track.”
He also thinks Dobson will be aided greatly by having at his side the knowledge of Mike Arthur, named Nebraska’s director of strength and conditioning in January. Arthur has been with the Husker athletic department for more than 30 years and Epley will tell you there’s no one in the country better.
Arthur came into the Husker program eight years after Epley got his start at NU.
Back then, Epley had to convince the head of the physical education department to set up a couple of morning classes that might bring players in for lifting.
Guys started showing up, a class roster with names on it like Tagge and Glover.
There were no Transformer machines that adjust to players’ weights and heights, nor were there 22-foot-high cathedral-shaped windows to look out after a completed set.
Yes, things have changed, but still there is this common theme: There’s always another level a strength and conditioning coach is trying to reach. What you might think is cutting-edge today could be outdated tomorrow.
“You got to have a beginner’s mind and always wanting to learn what’s the latest study out there, what’s the latest equipment,” Dobson said. “Because you need to have any edge you can get on the competition.”
BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Feb 17, 2008 - 12:16:21 am CST
You see the massive weight room attached to Memorial Stadium. You see third-stringers walk out of it looking like The Hulk and it’s easy to forget how different it was not that long ago.
Boyd Epley can take you back to 1969, back when many people didn’t think football players should be lifting weights out of fear it’d make them slow.
Epley wasn’t so sure. He came from Arizona, where some people were actually using weights. He was just a kid then, an injured Husker pole vaulter trying to strengthen his body by lifting. A few football players followed his lead. Assistant coach Tom Osborne was interested.
“Pretty soon I was standing before Bob Devaney,” Epley said. “I didn’t know if I was in trouble or not.”
The Husker football coach wanted Epley to tell him exactly why he thought his players should be lifting weights. None of the other schools were doing that. Why should Nebraska?
Epley hardly was full of answers then, but he sold Devaney enough on the idea.
Remembered Epley: “He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘If anyone gets slower, you’re fired.’”
That fall Epley started on salary at $2 an hour. No one got slower, apparently.
Nebraska’s strength program would soon become the envy of schools across the country. Epley remained in charge of Husker football strength and conditioning for 34 years. He became a legend in the field and people around the program called him “Mr. Big” for his big ideas.
To go back to 1969 and see the evolution of the strength and conditioning program is now an amazing study.
Then, hardly any team had a strength and conditioning coach. Now, you aren’t going to find a big-time football school without one — well-schooled and often well-paid. Nebraska’s new football strength and conditioning coach, James Dobson, makes $130,000 a year, more even than two of the new Husker assistant coaches.
He earns every penny, coaches will tell you. Husker offensive coordinator Shawn Watson said the strength coach and academic coordinator are probably the two most important people in the program outside of the coaching staff.
“He’s the guy that’s with our players every single day,” Watson said. “Because of that, philosophically, he’s going to develop a toughness, he’s going to develop a standard of accountability. He’s going to develop a standard of expectation.”
Jeff Jamrog, NU assistant athletic director for football operations, went another step.
“The hiring of a strength coach is as important as the offensive and defensive coordinators,” he said.
The heavy responsibility of the position is why many head coaches now hand pick their strength coaches. Bill Callahan chose Dave Kennedy. Bo Pelini chose Dobson.
A certain level of humility must come with the position, always recognizing that you never know it all. If you ever think that, you’re probably in for a big fall.
“I think strength and conditioning is a lot like medicine,” Dobson said. “It’s ever-evolving.”
This brings to mind a story from Epley. Two decades ago, most strength coaches were having football players run long distances during training.
Jamrog, a Husker letterwinner from 1985-87, remembers Epley used to have players run 1½ miles to see if they were in shape.
But in the late ’80s, research found that football players did not need to build such an aerobic base.
Epley changed methods he had used for almost 20 years. He made all his running drills 60 yards or less. “I argued with coaches, even with coaches on the Nebraska staff. We argued every day about this. There was tremendous resistance.”
The season Epley stopped the long-distance running, Nebraska’s linemen bulked up 30 pounds per player. Dominating seasons soon followed in the mid-’90s.
“I was sometimes flying by the seat of my pants,” Epley said. “I learned from mistakes.”
Epley, now working for the National Strength and Conditioning Association in Colorado Springs, Colo., believes a lot of coaches still get it wrong today in the aerobic drills they make players do.
But he likes what he’s heard about Dobson. “I look for him to get Nebraska back on track.”
He also thinks Dobson will be aided greatly by having at his side the knowledge of Mike Arthur, named Nebraska’s director of strength and conditioning in January. Arthur has been with the Husker athletic department for more than 30 years and Epley will tell you there’s no one in the country better.
Arthur came into the Husker program eight years after Epley got his start at NU.
Back then, Epley had to convince the head of the physical education department to set up a couple of morning classes that might bring players in for lifting.
Guys started showing up, a class roster with names on it like Tagge and Glover.
There were no Transformer machines that adjust to players’ weights and heights, nor were there 22-foot-high cathedral-shaped windows to look out after a completed set.
Yes, things have changed, but still there is this common theme: There’s always another level a strength and conditioning coach is trying to reach. What you might think is cutting-edge today could be outdated tomorrow.
“You got to have a beginner’s mind and always wanting to learn what’s the latest study out there, what’s the latest equipment,” Dobson said. “Because you need to have any edge you can get on the competition.”
