Brijesh Patel - NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, Season 7 Episode 16

This episode of the NSCA’s Coaching Podcast features the 2024 NSCA College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year, Brijesh Patel. Patel shares decades of wisdom and experience with NSCA Coaching and Sport Science Program Manager, Eric McMahon, including valuable lessons to support a fulfilling strength and conditioning career and avoid coach burnout. Learn about the journey of the 2023 Quinnipiac University National Champions Men’s Ice Hockey Team from the strength and conditioning coach’s perspective. Patel explains how program resources and support from administration can make or break the success of a program. From lessons on mentorship to putting in the work in support of professional development, this is an episode you will not want to miss.

Connect with Brijesh online at coachbpatel.com or by email: brijesh.patel@qu.edu| Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscs   
 
Also, here is the link to nominate a colleague or mentor for an NSCA Coach of the Year Award!

“In reality, I think, what makes you a really good coach is learning how to coach lots of different athletes and learning how to coach different sports. So when it comes time to earn the right to be able to specialize within one sport, you are going to know how to deal with different personalities and different athletes. And your problem solving ability is going to be that much more expensive because you've been able-- you've been exposed to so much more.” 9:25

“That’s something I brought to Quinnipiac and with my staff, too, is getting people to understand that you aren't a coach 24/7, right? You have to be able to have some family aspects of your life. You've got to have some work-life balance, to not only avoid burnout, but to help you become your best self when you're actually with the athletes that you're around.” 17:05

“Also, developing some coaching strategies where you empower the people that you're around and the people that you get to work with to do the things on their own, right? I tell recruits flat out – I am not a hand holder. I am not going to hold your hand through every single day. I will teach you and I will be a guide along your journey, but at the end of the day, it is your journey. So, if you want to get better, I'm here for you.” 24:48

“It's not just about trying to push them to the next level, but also, getting them to understand how to be an adult, how to take care of themselves in the arena, in the gym, and away. Teaching them how to go grocery shopping. Teaching them about nutrition. Teaching about stress management. Teaching about how to sleep. Teaching them all these tools so they can be healthy, not only while they're here, but also, for the rest of their lives, too.” 28:32

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:00:04.12] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast season seven, episode 16.
[00:00:11.11] In reality, I think, what makes you a really good coach is learning how to coach lots of different athletes. And learning how to coach different sports. So when it comes time to earn the right to be able to specialize within one sport, you're going to know how to deal with different personalities and different athletes, And your problem solving ability is going to be that much more expensive because you've been able-- you've been exposed to so much more.
[00:00:32.36] This is the NSCA's Coaching Podcast, where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know, but probably didn't learn in school. There's strength and conditioning, and then, there's everything else.
[00:00:43.32] This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Eric McMahon. And today, we're joined by 2024 NCAA College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Brijesh Patel. That award was recently announced on the NSCA website and through a press release.
[00:01:01.37] Brijesh, congrats, man.
[00:01:03.32] Thank you so much, Eric. Like I said before, it's just, I'm honored to receive such a prestigious award and very humbled.
[00:01:12.29] Yeah. So you are at Quinnipiac University. You've been there since 2008. I knew you stopped before that at Holy Cross. And you've been in the field for a long time. I know you were a nominee for the Coach of the Year Award a couple times, so it's nice to see you finally get that nod.
[00:01:32.09] But you had a big year. Quinnipiac just won the 2023 National Championship in Division I Hockey. How's that feel, man, as a strength and conditioning coach at an institution you've been at for so many years, to win that championship?
[00:01:49.22] Eric, it's a lot of emotion, honestly. Like, it was-- I came here in 2008. There was no strength and conditioning program prior to my arrival. So that was one of the unique things that kind of drew me to Quinnipiac is being able to start a program from scratch, because there's not a lot of people that get the opportunity to build a program. And it was just me. Like, I was the first full-time strength coach. I had no staff. No interns at the time.
[00:02:16.02] One facility that we kind of trained hockey and basketball out of, and then the other facility was our student rec center that we kind of had vendors come in and they had to train the other teams. And everything had to be done before 10:00 AM. So it was seeing it from that standpoint and now to a point where we have two facilities. I've got a staff of three full-time assistants. The hockey program won the National Championship.
[00:02:42.72] But it's a long time coming. And it's extremely rewarding to be able to see something that started from very little. And there's a lot of stories that go around the hockey program of, I had head coach has been here for 30 plus years. They used to practice at midnight. His office used to be a closet. And it's almost like a rags to riches type of story, where-- and especially playing Minnesota, beating Minnesota is almost like a David versus Goliath story in itself.
[00:03:12.18] But it was a long time coming. Like, that was the third time we've been to the National Championship. I don't know the exact stat, but I think, I've seen it online over the last 10 years, where we might be one of the most winningest programs in the country.
[00:03:28.01] So we've had a lot of success over time. And it's just constantly knocking at the door, knocking at the door, knocking the door. And then finally, we had the group to be able to break through. But the rush of emotions was-- not only the group that won, but everybody who had come before who was willing to build a foundation, create the culture, establish the values and the belief system that the Quinnipiac hockey is about. And a lot of those things kind of started in the weight room. And so I'm very proud to be able to coach the group that won the first National Championship here at Quinnipiac.
[00:04:07.42] Yeah. Hockey is huge in the Northeast. A lot of top programs that you guys get to compete against. Pretty much-- pretty much, every game is a big game for you guys. And, so it's exciting to see a school that maybe gets overlooked sometimes in the hockey ranks over the years just build such success. And you've been a part of that since the beginning. I love that rags to riches mentality of-- and we hear that. Weight rooms, these dungeon weight room stories in the profession.
[00:04:43.18] Yeah. If you've ever been-- I don't think you've been to our facility, but it's a beautiful facility. And it was built in '07. It's kind of outdated-- it's kind of dating itself now. But that was one of the big things too that kind of drew me to Quinnipiac back in the day-- and this is probably good for anybody who listens to this is-- I heard this growing up through my career and when I was looking to make a move from Holy Cross, somebody had told me, the level of your success is going to be predicated by the president and the athletic director.
[00:05:13.20] And when I came to Quinnipiac University in 2008, I had seen a massive commitment towards hockey and basketball. Like, those are the primary sports that they wanted to be good at. And they just didn't want to be good regionally. They wanted to be good nationally. And the level of investment that I saw was profound in wanting me to take over this program and take this job in the first place.
[00:05:39.31] But it was constant investments over the course of the time that led to not us having a dungeon mentality, but also, it just led to us getting to where we needed to be. Because administration saw the value in the hockey program, but also, in the support staff that goes around the hockey program. And our head coach is a big advocate of mine. And we believe in each other, and we trust each other. And so, he's been a huge advocate for me for being able to stay here this long and for me wanting to stay here this long.
[00:06:16.19] But it's a key thing for anybody who's listening to this, too, is if you're looking to take a job, if you're looking to make a move, the support from administration and the president goes a long way. And if you want to be in a system and you want to be at a place that desires to be excellent, you by yourself are only going to go so far, right? Obviously, you got to have really good athletes, but you got to have a support system around you that's going to allow you to thrive and allow you to do your job to the best of your ability.
[00:06:44.97] Yeah. That's incredible advice. Would you say that hockey is taking steps forward in recent years of getting more resources related to strength and conditioning, but programs as a whole? I mean, traditionally, we think of college football and some of the other-- basketball, as you mentioned. Do you think hockey is on the rise in terms of resources being allocated?
[00:07:10.29] I do. I think, it's one of that-- it's that next tier. Like, college football dominates everything, right? It's got the most amount of money. It's got the largest TV deals. And you can see it with conference realignment and everybody kind of cannibalizing each other.
[00:07:25.28] It's not about geography anymore. It's about dollars, right? And so that trickle down effect, I think, has made its way into basketball, as a lot of conferences try to realign themselves from a basketball standpoint, to get the most lucrative TV deals.
[00:07:39.07] And I think, the next tier of big time sports that are going to help push the envelope is baseball, I think, in the South, primarily, and then hockey in the Northeast and the Midwest. And you start to see what the roles that some of these schools start to carve out, right? They start to-- they post positions that are specifically for men's or women's ice hockey or men's ice hockey or women's ice hockey solely. Whereas when I started at the University of Connecticut, hockey wasn't really a big-- wasn't a big program that they invested in. And so the hockey strength and conditioning coach often had another three or four teams at the same time. It was the same thing a Holy Cross. With Jeff Oliver and myself, we had 14 teams each.
[00:08:21.52] So it was-- it's different to the standpoint now, where you can start to see there's a trickle down effect that's happened from football because they start to understand that if you want to be really good, you've got to make investments. And you have to make investments in the people around your program to best support the student athletes that are in your program.
[00:08:40.36] And even since I've been here, since 2008, I've seen it more and more within our league, within other schools around the Northeast that they're creating these positions that are specifically, solely, for one or two sports. And primarily in the sport of ice hockey, which is-- it's awesome to see.
[00:08:58.57] And I remember, Jerry Martin, Andrea Hudy back in the day. They would say that they had that-- they had that inclination-- this was in the early 2000s. They told me, I remember, it was the staff meeting we had. They had an inclination that a lot of strength and conditioning was going to go that route, where everybody's going to be a little bit more specialized. And sometimes you see that with young kids coming out, too, young coaches, they want to specialize so much in one sport.
[00:09:24.41] When, in reality, I think, what makes you a really good coach is learning how to coach lots of different athletes and learning how to coach different sports. So when it comes time to earn the right to be able to specialize within one sport, you're going to know how to deal with different personalities and different athletes. And your problem solving ability is going to be that much more expensive because you've been able-- you've been exposed to so much more.
[00:09:45.91] Yeah. That's such an interesting perspective on the single sports strength coach. Often, we think about it through our lens as, OK, if I'm going to be applying for this job, I'm applying with the hockey coach or the football coach. I'm going to be reporting to a sport coach and that's sort of a double-edged sword, as we see it in the strength and conditioning profession versus being part of an Olympic strength and conditioning department.
[00:10:12.75] But what you're saying is that a school that's able to do that is allocating more resources specific to strength and conditioning. And obviously, with the growth of technology and sports science and all these different tasks that coaches are being-- being added with their workload, having that dedicated role is actually a benefit to them, in terms of their workload. So they're not having to split multiple teams and, basically, do all the work of an entire department.
[00:10:44.04] You mentioned UConn. You mentioned Holy Cross. Obviously, Quinnipiac. Go back to the beginning for us. What was your motivation to get into strength and conditioning?
[00:10:54.15] This was something that's unique. And I'll always say that, I think, I'm wired differently than a lot of people. Like, I knew I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach when I was in high school. It was-- and I don't know if that's often, the case nowadays, but I knew what I wanted. And you don't often see-- I'm Indian by my ethnicity. You don't often see a lot of Indian people within strength and conditioning.
[00:11:17.71] And so, I remember having a conversation with my parents. They're like, what are you going to study in school? And I said I want to be a strength and conditioning coach. And they looked at me like, sideways. And they're like, can you support a family that way? And that was--
[00:11:29.59] That's a fair question, you know?
[00:11:31.72] Yeah. It took me-- it took me sideways. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to figure it out. Like, I made it a point to almost prove them wrong because it was something that I was passionate about. And I said to them, I didn't want to do something with my life that I didn't enjoy. And I enjoyed exercise. I enjoyed training. I enjoyed athletics. And I wanted to help other athletes become or help reach their goals. That's what I established when I was in high school.
[00:11:58.74] I knew that I was limited athletically, and I wasn't going to be able to compete at the highest level. But I knew that training helped me through my high school career, and then exercise, nutrition, and all these things that go into performance helped me. And I wanted to be able to help other athletes reach their goals.
[00:12:15.26] So I went to the University of Connecticut. Second week on campus, there was a flyer up in the student rec center. And it said come learn from Andrea Hudy-- Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for Varsity Athletics. And I saw it and I'm like-- so I went to it. And I don't remember what she taught. And she might have taught like Squat and how to Deadlift or how to clean or whatever it might have been. Like a little workshop.
[00:12:39.65] And after it, I went up to her and I said, I'd like to be a strength and conditioning coach. What do I do? And she kind of directed me towards the varsity weight room. And she said well, you got to meet with Coach Martin and you can try to be an intern. And so I remember, I went down the varsity weight room, and this was a dungeon. Like, this was in the basement. There was no windows. There was no daylight.
[00:13:03.80] And I remember meeting Coach Martin. And I don't know if you've ever met Coach Martin, but large man, intimidating. And I told them what I wanted to do. And he said, OK, we'll get back to you.
[00:13:15.51] And I went back to my dorm room and didn't have a cell phone. This was, like, 1998 so I didn't have a cell phone. And so, my dorm room phone rings and I pick it up, and it's Sean Wendell. And Sean calls me and he says, hey, I hear you want to be a strength coach. Why don't you come down to watch track and field? And I said, OK.
[00:13:36.70] So I went down to the varsity weight room I watched track and field. And then, Coach Martin brings me into the office afterwards and starts peppering me with questions and puts me on a whiteboard. And there's a lot of things that I had no idea what he was talking about. He was asking about fulcrums and levers systems and biomechanics. So didn't-- I didn't know a lot of the things. And he's like, all right, cool, look it up and then come back.
[00:14:00.16] And so I remember, I went to the bookstore. I bought some strength and conditioning books and I started reading them. And I'd go back. And every time after every session, he'd peppered with questions. And I think, what he was doing was testing me to see if I'd continue coming back. And he quickly realized he was never going to get rid of me. And so I kept coming back. I kept coming back. And eventually, they gave me more responsibility.
[00:14:22.42] And I remember, my spring semester-- the semester was almost over of my freshman year-- he was like-- he asked me to teach a women's track and field player how to do a clean. And I was like-- I was like, OK. And so I remember teaching her how to do a clean through the progressions that I learned from the staff. And at that point, I was like, wow. Like, he's actually letting me coach. Like, this is what I want to do.
[00:14:45.46] And every year, I got more and more responsibility. I became friendly with the staff. I was fortunate enough to be able to really get mentored by Sean Wendell a lot. And Sean took me under his wing and he introduced me to Jeff Oliver. Introduced me to Mike Boyle. He got me an internship with Mike Boyle.
[00:15:04.23] I came back and Sean ended up leaving for a job at Rutgers. And then Coach Martin came back to me-- this was going into my senior year. And he's like, hey, we're in a pinch. We're not going be able to hire anybody till January. Can you take over for some teams?
[00:15:16.92] And I'm a senior in college. Like, I just passed my CSCS that summer. And I said, sure. And he said, OK, you're in charge of track and field and baseball.
[00:15:25.77] And so I was a senior in college. I lived in the dorms. I worked with football. I worked with basketball. And I live with a lot of these kids on the same floor. I took classes with some of these kids that I was coaching.
[00:15:39.61] And I was, essentially, like a full-time strength and conditioning coach. I was in charge of talking to athletic trainers. I was in charge of dealing with the coaches and ask them about practice plans. And talk about training. And organizing travel and helping them all to do these things.
[00:15:54.53] And it was awesome. It was-- I don't think there's a lot of those opportunities that happen now, but that was-- it led me into getting a GA position. I did a couple internships at Holy Cross over the summer times. But yeah, my journey started when I was 18 years old. And so, I had gotten a lot of repetitions, a lot of mentoring. And I can look back and just, the amount of people that I've been able to surround myself with at that time was awesome. It's just-- it's like the who's who of coaches.
[00:16:25.67] I mean, Andrea Hudy, Tina Murray, [? Chris ?] [? Wesch, ?] Sean Wendell, Moe Butler Jeff Oliver Mike Potenza. Like, just so many people that from my experiences in the Northeast-- Adam Feit, Mary Kate Feit-- like, there was just so many really good coaches at that time. And it was almost like the birth of strength and conditioning, where it started to become a little bit bigger and bigger. So I was very fortunate, but that's a little bit of my story.
[00:16:50.82] Then, I end up at Holy Cross for four and a half years. And working with Jeff Oliver was a-- was a blessing. He taught me so much more about strength conditioning, but more about life and understanding how to have balance.
[00:17:05.32] And that's something I brought to Quinnipiac and with my staff, too, is getting people to understand that you aren't a coach 24/7, right? You've got to be able to have some family aspects of your life. You've got to have some work-life balance, to not only avoid burnout, but to help you become your best self when you're actually with the athletes that you're around. So that's a little bit of my story, but I'm blessed to be where I am and to have the experiences that I have.
[00:17:34.42] I want to hear you unpack that work-life balance aspect a little bit more. It's something we hear-- we hear about. We were talking about dungeon weight rooms. Talk about the progression of the field, it's something we really didn't hear about back then. And your journey, it's really one of persistence. You got an early start in the profession, like many of us do, and you just never-- you never quit. You keep finding resources and mentors and finding what that next step is going to be to progress your knowledge, progress your coaching ability, and just get more opportunities.
[00:18:15.01] But on the work-life balance front, obviously, a little older now, a little more experienced. You have a family. Is this an area that we have improved as a field? Where do you think we're at right now?
[00:18:30.85] I think, it's a mixed bag. And I think, it depends on where you're at it. When I was at the University of Connecticut, it was-- it was-- the people that I was surrounded with were unbelievable coaches, but it was all about coaching all the time. And all about athletics all the time. And I didn't know any different.
[00:18:51.70] Coach Martin would tell me stories where he used to live in New Haven and New Haven to Storrs is probably about an hour away. And sometimes, he would sleep on the side of the highway, and then he'd go back to UConn. And to me, I was like, oh, that's just-- it's a story of perseverance.
[00:19:10.15] And I remember, I went to Holy Cross and Jeff would be like, dude, you're going to kill yourself. He's like, you can't do this all the time. He's like name me coaches who have retired as strength coaches. And I'm like-- at that time, I don't really know a lot. And he's like-- he's like because they don't, because they burn themselves out. He's like-- so he would force me. There'd be massive gaps in my day, like if I had teams early in the morning, I might have three, four, five hours where I don't have anybody.
[00:19:40.20] Before my next trip, he's like, go home. He's like, go grocery shopping. He's like, go to the-- schedule your dentist appointment. He's like go get an oil change or whatever you need to do. Just, go leave. And he would force me to go leave.
[00:19:54.72] And it was at that point-- it was hard to do initially because I wasn't wired that way. But he, basically, told me, he's like, listen, he's like if you try to do this 24/7, he's like, you're not going to have much of a life span. And so you've got to be able to understand that it has to be balance. And so-- and I would see it, too. He would say it to me, but he would tell me and he would show me because he'd have his kids around the weight room. He would leave, like, to go home for lunch, to have lunch with his wife. And I'd never seen that before.
[00:20:25.19] And I saw it. And I'm like, you know what, nothing suffered. Nothing ever broke down. Everything still worked like a fine-oiled machine because it was almost like when he was there, he was all in. And athletes saw that. But when it was time to turn it off, he turned it off.
[00:20:42.69] And so I started to realize that at the same time, too. You need to be able to have that balance because-- we talk to our student athletes about this, too-- when we want to go high, you got to go all in. And you got to go high intensity. But when we want to rest and recovery, we got to shut it down. So why would we not follow the same rules that we try to teach our athletes about, making sure that they recover when it's time to recover?
[00:21:06.06] And now, I think, it's a little bit more prevalent, right? There's so many different things you can do to help shut off. Whether it be, meditation has become much more prevalent or mindfulness. Different apps that you can use. Different recovery strategies that you can use, like sleep pods. There's recovery rooms. Like, all these types of things are trying to force you to recover.
[00:21:25.17] But sometimes, the biggest thing you can do to recover is just unplug, or just go away, or just go do what you need to do to take care of yourself. And I think, it's massively important for anybody within this field to realize. Obviously, we are in a service field, right? We work with student athletes. We work with athletes no matter what setting you work, or have clients. But for you to be at your best, you need to make sure you're at your physical best.
[00:21:52.35] It's almost this principle that I talk to the student athletes that I get to work with-- and actually did this talk for teachers, too-- is you have to be able to lead yourself before you can lead others. So if you're going to ask other people to shut it down, to stretch, to recover, to meditate, to get away from their sport, to take some time away, then wouldn't it make sense if you did it yourself? And then when you do it and your athletes see it, I think, you gain-- you earn a little bit more respect because they understand that you have balance, too.
[00:22:20.41] Yeah. I love that performance analogy you gave. I love that-- and a lot of times, we can do this, right? We know reps and sets. We know strength and conditioning. And there's hidden wisdom within our field that maybe wasn't intended, but we need to do that. And that's maturity. That's gaining experience early in your career and learning from that.
[00:22:47.50] And then, how to-- you talk about Jeff Oliver and how you approach coaching now. It's really being able to flip that switch on and go all in that moment, like you're asking your athletes to do, whether it's in training or on game day. But in the big picture, you are playing the long game. To do the most good in this profession, you have to be in this profession for a long time. And to do that, it impacts your energy level, how you're feeling about things.
[00:23:16.30] Just on a day-to-day basis, it's such a positive message and path that we're on right now, to think about the field in this way. But it doesn't take away from the fact that our job is to push athletes, sometimes, close to their breaking point or where they really experience another level of challenge, taking them to another level. And that's what's really great about our profession. And it's an area you mentioned. We're getting better as a profession at being able to navigate the gas pedal and the brake pedal.
[00:23:56.80] Yeah. That's great-- that's a great way to put it. And it's-- I do want to say this, though, when it comes to it is, earlier on your career, you may have to work a little bit more than you probably want to and that, probably, you need to because you need to get develop the reps, right? There needs to be a phase of your journey or phase of your development where you have to put in the reps.
[00:24:15.82] And those are the key reps in how you learn how to read body language. How to deal with difficult conversations. How to coach. How to organize. How to deal with logistics. How to deal with different constraints that you might be experiencing. Because if you're not exposed to those, you're not going to have the requisite tools in your toolbox to be able to understand how to deal with difficult situations and different scenarios.
[00:24:37.25] And so, there are times when you got to sprint, right? And you got to sprint, and you got to put in those reps. And once you put in those reps, then you got to start to understand now, it's time for me to peel back a little bit.
[00:24:48.88] And also, developing some coaching strategies where you empower the people that you're around and the people that you get to work with to do the things on their own, right? Like I tell recruits flat out like, I'm not a hand holder. I'm not going to hold your hand through every single day. I will teach you. And I'm a guide along your journey. But at the end of the day, it's your journey. So if you want to get better, I'm here for you.
[00:25:08.99] And that's no different than with the interns that I have on or the Fellows that I have on or the staff I have, as well. I will help guide you, but at the end of the day, you got to put in the reps.
[00:25:19.82] Yeah. Hey, you mentioned recruiting, and this is something that doesn't come up a ton when we talk about strength and conditioning. But what's the role of the strength and conditioning coach in the recruiting process? Has that changed over the time in your career? I know we're hearing a lot about NIL and transfer portals, and it's a wild-- it's a wild area, college athletics, right now with a lot of changes happening. Talk about recruiting a little bit.
[00:25:53.29] So I was fortunate. I saw the role of strength and conditioning in recruiting from early on. Like, when I was at the University of Connecticut, I saw every one of our staff members was involved in the recruiting process by meeting with prospective student athletes. They were part of the itinerary. The coaches that brought prospective student athletes around made time and carved timeout for the strength and conditioning staff to meet with them to discuss the strength issuing program. And that was at-- one of my stages at UConn, it was the stages of myself at Holy Cross, and then, as well, here.
[00:26:30.25] The thing that I have noticed is that, I think, strength and conditioning plays a much larger role than it did, maybe-- lord-- 20 years ago when you talk to a student athlete. Because a lot of the kids now have had some level of training on their own, whether it be with their sport coaches, or they've gone to a private instructor, or they've gone to strength training facilities for development. I think, training isn't something you do just to get an edge. You got to do to keep your edge, right? That's what's happened at the development stages now with the youth athletics.
[00:27:01.43] So I think, a lot of the kids have some level of strength and conditioning experience, whether it be good, bad, and different. It's one of those things that when ask the question, I go, "What's your experience?", a lot of them have said they've trained. And that's across the board men, women, basketball, hockey. It doesn't matter the sport, a lot of them have trained.
[00:27:18.02] Maybe not with intent or maybe not consistently, but their training age is just, probably, a little bit higher than it was 20 years ago. And I think, what starts to happen-- and I say this to our recruits-- is sometimes-- and I say it to parents too because it's really important for them to understand-- sometimes, you're going to spend as much time, if not more time, with the strength and conditioning staff than you are your sport coaches. Especially when it comes to off season training.
[00:27:45.36] Like, I work with winter sports so our off season in the summertime. And the NCAA rules say, especially in hockey, you're not-- you can't work with your hockey coaches in the summer, but you can work with your strength and conditioning staff in the summer.
[00:27:56.82] So I see our student athletes, some of them are here for 12 to 14, 15 weeks, so I see them all summer long. I'm the first person who gets to work with our incoming freshmen. Or any transfers, I'm the first person that they see.
[00:28:11.41] So I think, strength and conditioning is a large-- plays a large part in the recruiting role because these kids are going to spend a lot of time training. And that's one thing I always try to get through to our potential student athletes and their families and their parents is like, listen, you want to be in a place-- especially to a parent-- where your child is taken care of, right? Where your child is-- their well-being is thought of.
[00:28:32.61] It's not just about trying to push them to the next level, but it's, also, getting them to understand-- understand how to be an adult, how to take care of themselves in the arena, in the gym, but also, away. Like, teaching them how to go grocery shopping. Teaching them about nutrition. Teaching about stress management. And teaching about how to sleep. Teaching them all these tools so they can be healthy, not only while they're here, but also, for the rest of their lives, too.
[00:28:55.93] So I think, it's a big piece of the puzzle. And I think, it's something that's definitely evolved over the course of time. And I think, it's important for strength and conditioning coaches, if you do get to meet with prospective student athletes and parents, is to get them to understand what your vision is, and what your mission is, and how you can best help and support the student athletes that you could potentially work with.
[00:29:19.42] You've navigated sort of your entire career of 20, 25 years in the profession. And we've kind of taken this episode along a continuum from the early days to today. What are some of the changes you're seeing now, maybe, for better or for worse?
[00:29:39.96] Yeah. There's some massive changes. I think, we've talked about them a little bit more in terms of specialization. Like, a lot of coaches have become specialized within particular sports. And I think, that's great because it lends for more time to work with individual student athletes. It's a massive resource for the head coach, for the program. It's a recruiting benefit to be able to say that you have a strength and conditioning coach that works solely with your team and your team only. Because it's more access. It's more-- you can build a stronger relationship.
[00:30:10.67] But oftentimes, I see this in development of young coaches and people who want to intern is they may not want to put in the same amount of time that it requires that it takes to earn the right to be able to work with one team solely. Like, a lot of these coaches and young coaches think that they do one internship, and they're automatically prepared to get a full-time job. Like, it doesn't work that way.
[00:30:33.53] There's a lot of things that you need to be able to experience. There's a lot of things that you need to be able to understand. Like I talked about before, like understanding how to deal with different constraints of weight room logistics, lack of equipment. To understand how to best navigate yourself for the opportunities that come up in the future.
[00:30:52.70] But I think, there's no-- there's nothing that replaces the opportunity to work with lots of different student athletes, to work with many different sports, work with many different coaches to understand personalities. I think, that's-- one of the biggest things I see in the field right now is for young coaches to want to work with everybody and not just want to work with premier sports all the time because it's easy to coach really gifted athletes. And oftentimes, when you get to work with these programs, maybe the upper echelon programs or their tier one programs, they often have a lot of really good athletes.
[00:31:26.06] And so, it doesn't require as much coaching ability to coach the best athletes. You may have to coach them a little bit differently, but for you to be able to really develop your coaching skills, your coaching eye, you've got to work with, maybe, the least talented athletes, the less talented athletes to understand what cueing is going to work. What coaching is going to work. How to design a program.
[00:31:47.47] How to figure out your system, right? Develop a system of training, I think, that's another thing, too. I don't know if a lot of young coaches realize that having a system and how it's going to work and how it's going to transfer to different locations and different places with different sports. I think, those are probably the missing things that I see a lot in the development process.
[00:32:06.99] And then the other thing, too, in terms of good is that, I think, there's more strength teaching jobs across the industry, which is good. From the high school level all the way up to the private setting and private facilities, but also, at the college level, too. Even professional. Like, the amount of staff expansion that has occurred has been unreal. It's been awesome. It has allowed for a lot more people to get jobs, especially with high schools hiring strength and conditioning coaches.
[00:32:34.95] So that's really a positive thing that I've seen within the field, but there's so many other things, too.
[00:32:40.80] Like, the progression of technology and understanding how to use technology within training. The emergence of a different hat that we often have to wear is like being a sports scientist at the same time, too. Like, there's so many different roles, but there's, also, different specialists that have been-- specialist jobs that have been created, too, because some places can afford the ability to hire maybe a sports scientist specifically for an athletic department or specific team.
[00:33:08.89] So there's a lot of good things. A lot of job opportunities have been created. But at the same time, I do think, from a development standpoint, that younger coaches need to not be afraid to work. And not be afraid to diversify the experiences that they have. And just, play the long game, right? It just-- there's no quick-- there's no rush to success. Like, things take time.
[00:33:32.66] It's great to see, obviously, the job growth we've had in our profession. It's never fast enough. I know a lot of coaches would say we need to advocate even more for higher salaries and better positions and more career progressions. But I like the mentality you described of really investing our time early in our career to build a breadth of experience and knowledge.
[00:34:00.49] And there's a lot that can be learned. If you want to be a Division I Hockey strength and conditioning coach, well, you might be dealing with a shoulder injury that when you worked with baseball or another sport that could be beneficial, that knowledge. That maybe you're not going to get that experience enough in a sport like hockey to really be able to work through that. So just an example there.
[00:34:23.56] But there's a lot of inherent learning that happens sort of through that Olympic strength and conditioning path that we came up with. And that is a change in the field. It's something for aspiring coaches to realize. That if your first internship is with a single sport program or whatever it may be, don't foreclose your approach so much that you limit your opportunities in the future because I think, there are a lot of coaches out there that maybe aspire to one thing and 10, 15 years later are doing something slightly different or completely different. And that's OK. I think that speaks to the professional growth and just the number of jobs that are out there.
[00:35:12.53] We've seen a lot even in tactical, military side of the profession.
[00:35:15.53] Yeah. I didn't even mention that. Yeah. That's a huge growth.
[00:35:19.10] And it is really great to see growth in our profession. I want to congratulate you, again, man, on your award. You mean a lot to the NSCA, I want to say that.
[00:35:30.55] Thank you.
[00:35:30.85] And just, thanks so much for everything you've done over the years to help coaches grow. And we look forward to seeing you in a week or two at Coaches Conference.
[00:35:41.99] Awesome. Thanks, Eric. I really appreciate the time and for the ability to be able to share and hopefully, inspire some other coaches to push forward in their career paths.
[00:35:51.74] And we covered a lot. What's the best way for listeners to reach out and connect with you?
[00:35:57.29] So the best way is probably via socials or probably, my website, coachbpatel.com. It's something I put together during COVID about-- it has all the podcasts I've done, all the articles I've written. Different opportunities for consultations, coaching. So you can probably reach me best through there. That's probably the best way to get about me.
[00:36:22.30] Awesome. We'll throw that in the show notes. So thanks, again. And everyone, thanks for tuning in today. This was a fun conversation. I think, there's a lot of good nuggets, takeaways, regardless of where you're at in your coaching-- your coaching journey.
[00:36:35.99] And just a little plug for our NSCA awards that we need nominees every single year for our Professional, College, Assistant College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Awards. Also, our High School Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Award that comes out at National Conference every year. So if you have a great colleague or someone that you think is deserving and you want to recommend them, go on nsca.com-- we'll throw that link in the show notes, as well-- so that you can nominate a fellow coach.
[00:37:08.14] And also, special thanks to Sorinex Exercise Equipment. We appreciate their support.
[00:37:14.24] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:37:14.97] Hi, coaches. I'm Liane Blyn, the 2022 NSCA College Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year. You just listened to an episode of the NSCA Coaching Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to hear important conversations about the strength and conditioning profession.
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[00:37:46.19] This was the NSCA's Coaching Podcast. The National Strength and Conditioning Association was founded in 1978 by strength and conditioning coaches to share information, resources, and help advance the profession. Serving coaches for over 40 years, the NSCA is the trusted source for strength and conditioning professionals. Be sure to join us next time.

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