Total Hours for Week 8:  10

The second summer football camp that I had to help Coach Ison with was this week.  Coach Ison went through his presentation of the importance of weight training, stretching, and proper nutrition.  Again, I helped him with demonstrating the stretches and drills that he had at his station in the camp.  We ran the warm-ups and stretching at the start of each day and did the stretching after the last drills were run.

I went back into the weight room at the end of the week to do my usual Friday cleaning of the weight room.  I made sure that there were enough bands available for the band workouts.  I didn’t see any athletes in the weight room this Friday.

Total Hours for Week 7:  10

This week was the first of two summer football camps I had to help Coach Ison with.  I assisted Coach Ison with running his portion of the camp.  He spoke to the athletes about the importance of weight training workouts, stretching, and proper nutrition.  I helped him demonstrate the stretches and drills as he went through them.

Coach Ison and I helped with the warm-ups and stretching at the beginning of each day.  We also helped with stretching after the final drills were over.  At the end of the week, I went into to weight room to check on any athletes that were there on Friday.  I also did my usual Friday cleaning and straightening up of the weight room equipment.

Total Hours for Week 6:  8

When Coach Ison got back into the office from being out of town for the fourth of July, we met and discussed the upcoming camps and what drills he wanted to do during the camps.  Coach Ison also wanted me to go over stretches and the benefits of the band workouts with the athletes. 

All the athletes were instructed to do weight training three days a week and speed training and flexibility training two days a week.  Coach Ison wanted to make sure the athletes were doing their stretches and ensure that they were warming up and cooling down for their workouts.  The band exercises needed to be completed slowing ensuring the exercise was controlled and not rushed through.  The band exercises can be used for stretching and also for shoulder exercises.  I did my usual cleaning of the weight room on Friday.

Thinking about how it feels to be in a new place, I can tell that the athletes know that I am in the process of learning more and more about strength and conditioning.  I had a general understanding of the exercises and concepts of a strength and conditioning program since I played in college and have been working in college football since 2007 but the role that I have as the strength and conditioning coach’s intern is totally different than what I have experienced before.  Compared to how the athletes respond to me when I am working with them as a defensive coach, how they respond to me while I am in the role as the strength intern is different.  The athletes like to joke around with me about being Coach Ison’s intern.  I am learning new skills and am trying to develop my skills as a strength and conditioning coach so I am not always as confident with my abilities as a strength coach and I know the athletes can see that.  They joke with me but I know that they still respect me because I show them respect and joke with them too.  It’s a give and take and the rapport I have built with most of them over the time that I have been at Tiffin has helped build their respect for me as a coach in general.  It feels good to learn new skills and I think the best way to do that is when you are able to use the skills in a real-life setting.

Total Hours for Week 5:  5

Since this was the week of the fourth of July there were not many coaches at the office.  Coach Ison wanted me to use this time to do a complete cleaning of the weight room since there were not many people using it.  If I had any extra time Coach Ison wanted me to do some research on drills for camps that were scheduled for later in July.

I only worked on Monday and Tuesday of this week because I was going home to Virginia to spend the fourth of July with my family.  After Coach Ison and I went over my tasks for the week for about 30 minutes, I spent 2.5 hours cleaning the weight room on Monday.  I put all the weights on the racks and ensured everything looked organized.  I wiped down all the benches with cleaning solution and a towel.  After I got all the equipment cleaned, I swept the floors.  On Tuesday, I spent 2 hours looking up drills for the upcoming camps.

Total Hours for Week 4:  10

This week was a lot like last week.  The one big difference was that Coach Ison wanted me to talk to the athletes to see how they were doing with their summer workouts.  I called the out-of-town athletes to check to see how they were doing and answered any questions.  Some of the athletes were having issues with sticking to the workout plan or nutrition plan.  I reminded the athletes that if they stuck to the workout and nutrition plan in the manual, camp would be easier in August. 

This week I focused on the new athletes who were coming to Tiffin to work out during the summer.  I tried to introduce them to some of the other athletes so they could start coming with the current football players and start building relationships with them.  I encouraged the current players to be leaders to the new athletes.  Leadership is an important part of a team and I wanted the current players to step up to challenge of being leaders on the team.  I took about 30 minutes on Friday to do a quick cleaning of the weight room since Coach Ison wanted me to do a complete cleaning next week.

The organizational culture that exists with the Tiffin University football team is a compete culture (Cameron, Quinn, DeGraff, & Thakor, 2003).  This type of organizational culture is results-driven, competitive, and goal-oriented.  The head football coach is the leader of the team and he works with the Athletic Department and the Athletic Director.  The head coach trusts the strength and conditioning coach to implement a program that makes the athletes successful on the field.  If the head coach wants the strength and conditioning coach to work on a certain area for improvement, he will speak to the strength coach about what he wants to be accomplished.  The strength coach will then plan and implement a program to reach that goal.  The strength coach will communicate his plan to me as his intern and I will help him follow through with the plan.  If the strength program is doing something the head coach does not think is accomplishing the goal he gave the strength coach, he will speak to the strength coach in order to fix whatever issues the head coach has with the program.  Ultimately, the head coach is the leader of the team and all the staff under him is working towards the goals of the head coach.

Cameron, K. S., Quinn, R. E., DeGraff, J., and Thakor, A. J.  (2003)  Competing Values Framework.  Retrieved from:  http://competingvalues.com/competingvalues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Competing-Values-Leadership-Excerpt.pdf