Wow, look what I dug up! Years ago, I had the opportunity to e mail Coach Ethan Reeve, one of my mentors, and he dished out some insanely powerful training information. Here it is, once again, for your reading pleasure.

Grab some hot cocoa, relax and enjoy!

1) Coach Reeve, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. You have been a highly successful wrestler, wrestling coach and a ground breaking strength coach. With what you see regarding the physical strengths / weaknesses of your incoming college freshman, how would you train a high school athlete (focusing more on wrestlers & football players) to better prepare them for D 1 sports?

Coach Reeve: Yes, I wrestled at the University of Tennessee from 1973-77. Although I was not an NCAA Champion I was a 4-time Southeastern Conference Champion and a 2-time NCAA All-American. Fortunately, I was privileged to have been an assistant wrestling coach under some great coaches at the University of Tennessee (Gray Simons), Oklahoma State University (Tommy Chesbro), Ohio University (Harry Houska) and Clemson University (Eddie Griffin). Eventually I landed the Head Wrestling coach position at the University of Tennessee @ Chattanooga where I coached from 1984-1990. We had five Southern Conference Championship teams in six years. I loved coaching wrestling and still miss it. However, I really enjoy training all sorts of sport athletes. The main thing I enjoyed about coaching wrestling was the training in the wrestling room. That is why it was such an easy transition to strength coaching because I just love training athletes and helping them become champions. Hard, smart work is the answer to success!

Basically, we are at the mercy of the athletes that are given to us by our sport coaches in recruiting. Our job, as strength coaches, is to “maximize” the athletic potential of each and every athlete we work with. We trust our sport coaches to identify the athletes they feel can help our university have success in that particular sport. Sport coaches, like NFL scouts, will look at film and visit the players and see how they perform at practice and in competition. An athlete can have great results in the “combine” but not perform well in competition. If the athletes do not succeed in their sport under competitive situations then they will be overlooked in the recruiting process no matter how well they test in the strength room or combine. What coaches need are athletes that perform well in competition. We do not emphasize numbers in testing in the strength room or speed and agility tests. We look for adequate strength, power, speed and athleticism. If the athletes given to us do not meet our standards then it is our job to get them to those minimum standards. It is the athlete’s choice to go beyond those standards and succeed at a higher level on the field of competition.

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