Little rest ahead for football team

UW-Oshkosh's football team gathered in the Student Recreation and Wellness Center gym as Steve Brown, strength and conditioning coordinator, called roll.

"Come on, guys," he said. "Hustle up."

The team is still half asleep as he reads the names.

It's 6 a.m.

There was no motivational pep talk before they start training. The team lined up, and Brown called out the name of their first exercise.

"Ready, go!" he yelled. "Ready, go … ready, go!"

Three lines of players skip across the gym floor. As the team changed to a grapevine thigh adduction and abduction exercise called karaoke, some of the players laughed.

After a few more exercises, the players began waking up and chiding each other.

A player sang out one-verse bursts of pop songs. No one joined him.

"These guys are used to having people around watching," assistant coach Luke Venne said. "Don't think this behavior is out of the ordinary."

He also said about 80 percent of the team trains in the morning sessions "to get it over with."

"The team gets used to the early mornings," he said. "They get into a routine and want to follow it. I think most people are like that."

The team trains three to four times a week during the offseason, December through March, and after spring break, traditional practices start in the evenings.

For the first 40 minutes of the two-hour training session, Brown conducted strength, agility and speed drills with the entire team.

"We use moves that develop strength, power, balance, agility and mobility," he said. "I leave the sport specific skills to the coaches. My job is to improve their general athletic skills and reduce the likelihood of injuries."

Brown said he developed the program while he worked at UW-Whitewater.

"The training program works to train movements rather than muscles," he said. "Muscles have to fire in a certain order. So, we train to improve that whole body power."

Vince Sciano, junior defensive end for the team, said he liked the training because of the whole body workout.

"We work all the muscles," he said. "Coach Brown is great."

After the first session of drills, Brown talked to the whole team about proper weight lifting techniques, and the linemen left the gym to lift weights with Venne.

The rest of the team continued agility drills with Brown.

"Quick feet, quick feet," Brown said as the players jumped back and forth across a line on the floor. "And … relax."

The next group cycled through the jumping exercise, and the jumping and flexibility drills continued.

In the weight room, Venne supervised, his voice carrying across the facility, "Go! Go! Go!"
The linemen rotated through several lifts, including the bench press and squat.

Barry Derickson, junior left tackle, said players met and agreed to work out during the offseason.

"We're training to be a champion team, because we play against champion teams," he said. "The time you put into preparing for the season will reflect in how you play."

Review of prior records, however, doesn't reflect any positive trends since the organized offseason workouts began. Venne said the training sessions haven't helped the team record, but have helped reduce injuries.

"The offseason training is really to make our players better athletes," he said. "We want to reduce injuries. With this training, with Coach Brown's help, they learn how their bodies work and move. That makes it worth it, no matter the reflection on the record."

Derickson said though Oshkosh is a Division III school, the team works like a Division I school.

"In Division I schools, these offseason workouts are mandatory," he said. "Here we don't have to. We don't get the scholarships. But, this is college. You have to work hard at what you love."

This work ethic shows itself in the whole team, Brown said.

"Any college athletic team is a huge commitment for students," he said. "Being in a sport makes them develop great time management skills. And here, student athletes generally have a higher grade point average than the student body."