The Times West Virginian

WVU Sports

May 19, 2010

HERTZEL COLUMN - WVU hard at work

By Bob Hertzel For the Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN —  

The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are still in the midst of naming their champions from the season past, major league baseball has yet to play in the heat of summer, yet if you listen closely as you drive past Milan Puskar Stadium you can hear the true sounds of summer – West Virginia football players at work.

They are not yet conducting practices, although there will be unsupervised seven-on-seven drills, and a talented freshman quarterback named Barry Brunetti is now on campus taking classes so he can work with offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen in beginning to understand the system.

Mostly, though, they belong to Mike Joseph, the former Fairmont State University running back now in charge of the Mountaineer weight program.

“The No. 1 goal right now is to get them ready for camp and the season,” Joseph said.

The off-season strength and conditioning program began with a team meeting on Monday night and with Tuesday workouts. With spring practice still fresh in their minds, this year-round circus that is college football begins anew.

The off-season program is totally different than what begins over the summer. For the most part, in the off-season, the Mountaineer players are asked to improve their basic physical assets – strength, balance and their weight.

Now it’s time to work on their skills with the drills emphasizing explosiveness and position specific drills.

It is the most grueling, most difficult part of the football season, the hot summer sun beating down upon them, the sweat rolling out of each pore, some of it evaporating into the summer air, much of running into their burning eyes.

“We are trying to get competition out of it, too,” Joseph said.

The competition aspect is important in keeping the interest level high, as well as in pushing them through the football player’s natural competitive nature.

Two and a half months of just telling them they will be better football players is a long time, so they have goals, whether it be group goals or individual competitions to add a challenge, something tangible in the present to work for, rather than just that cherry of a bowl assignment that comes six or seven months later with a strong season.

The ultimate goal really is quite simple to define, hard to attain.

“The goal is be strong, fast, explosive and resilient,” Joseph said.

The reality is that the strength staff addresses six areas in creating the ultimate athlete, as far as his training goes.

They are:

• Strength

• Flexibility and injury avoidance

• Agility and quickness

• Speed and explosive power

• Conditioning

• Nutrition and recognition that you must take care of your body

The key point is that there are no shortcuts and, in truth, if there were shortcuts they might not be taken for that would subtract from the ultimate goal, which is team building, striving together to reach a goal that does not come easily.

It takes commitment to get through it because the work is hard and there are no cheering fans, no cheerleaders or Mountaineer.

Just them and 320-pound weight or a couple of journeys up Law School Hill between them and exhaustion.

And make no doubt that it matters.

Joseph can always tell them about Ellis Lankster, a cornerback who came here just a couple of years ago out of junior college in Mississippi.

In junior colleges you have far less advantages in the area of weight training than you have at major football powers and Lankster came in out of shape and overweight, two areas which can turn a promising cornerback into a former cornerback.

If he brought a paunch with him, he also brought a desire to get rid of it.

Joseph told him what he had to do, coaxed him through it and Lankster was willing to put forth the necessary effort.

The result was one of those satisfying results that a coach like Joseph gets in place of accolades from the public.

“Ellis Lankster put himself in position to be drafted,” Joseph said.

The secret to being able to pull that out of a player is simple.

“Trust,” Joseph said. “It comes down to trust. If they believe and trust in what you tell them, they will do what you want. I’m basically a teacher in the weight room.”

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

Text Only
WVU Sports
  • Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU

    That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
    Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games.

    February 8, 2012

  • WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion

    Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
    A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12.

    February 8, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar

    Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.

    February 8, 2012

  • WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion

    Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.

    February 7, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win

    Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.

    February 6, 2012

  • WVU finds a way, wins in overtime

    Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.

    February 6, 2012

  • Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence

    The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.

    February 5, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history

    On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.

    February 5, 2012

  • WVU backs out of Florida State game

    West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
    Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement.

    February 5, 2012

  • WVU women upset Louisville

    It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.

    February 5, 2012