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Show . Wednesday, March. 10, 2010 Page 5 w WednesdaySp0 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com WAC champion returns as coach By TYREL SKINNER staff writer Track and field assistant coach John Strang enjoys playing badminton and other sports, spending Sunday afternoons at Einstein's Bagels and sipping hot chocolate at Borders, and loves coaching his athletes. Oh, and during his down time, he trains for the USA Olympic Trials. Around this time last year, Strang was an Aggie athlete and had just finished winning his second-straight WAC Heptathlon title and helped his team to second place in the Indoor Championships. This year he returned to help his team win the WAC Indoor Championships — this time as its coach. After graduating from USU last year, Strang spent some time in North Carolina, trying to continue his training. He found that continuing his training was financially hard and had to start working. "When I was in North Carolina, I was working a full-time job," Strang said. "I would train in the morning and then go to work my full-time job, and I didn't have time for dinner. I didn't have time for anything." By this time, Strang had seen some of the country, but was still unsure of what he wanted. He said he considered going to the University of Utah spring semester of 2010 for graduate school. Then he found out that his alma mater, and former team was without a multi-event coach. "I actually told myself that I would never come back and coach athletes that I've been on the same team with," Strang said. "It's a struggle when you're coaching your friends because you have to be authoritative sometimes. It's hard to do that when you've been best friends with somebody for years." USU had lost its multievent coach midseason and needed to hurry and find somebody to fill the position. Strang knew it would be difficult to come back, but he had set his education up for the possibility of coaching. He also knew that more than anything, he wanted his team to be in the best situation possible. "I hated to see my fellow teammates, my former teammates, left hanging in the middle of the season with somebody that doesn't know about them, and I thought for them and for me it would be the best-case scenario if I came in, simply because I know all of them," he said. Strang was hired at the beginning of the year, just in time to help with the start of the indoor track season. The first month and half was difficult for him, he said. He had been thrown straight into the start of the season without having the offseason to prepare. He said he was nervous and the transition from athlete to coach was hard. The easy-going nature of the coaches seemed to help him though. "We're all kind of pretty easy-going guys. We're all former athletes," Strang said. "It's not like football, where it's a lot more intense. It's a little more laid back as far as that goes." He seems to have adjusted nicely and has had good results with the athletes. Strang has shelved his personal athletic career. Although he still dreams of more track in the future, he has decided to focus on coaching. He still works out two to three times a week, but it is not nearly as much as the six times a week that he did as a collegiate athlete and hopes to in the future. Strang said he knows he can help current athletes because he knows what it's like to compete in today's atmosphere and plans to return to compete in the near future. JOHN STRANG CROSSES THE FINISH LINE during the 2009 track and field WAC Championships held in Logan. Strang competed in 10 events en route to become conference champion in the decathlon. PATRICK ODEN photo "A lot of the time I'll do the workouts that I prescribe for my athletes, and being in even less shape then they are, I know what it does to the body so then I can either take it down or make it harder for them," Strang said. "I know what they're going through, and I think it helps." Strang said he tries to follow the same coaching beliefs as legendary track coach Bill Bowerman. Bowerman always said he was not so much a coach as he was a "teacher of life." Strang has tried to implement this philosophy into his coaching, saying, "I know it's just track, but you're around them so much and you have such an influence on them, in one way or the other you are influencing them, hopefully for the good, and I See STRANG, page 7 Football team gearing up for September Aggie football players already preparing for Oklahoma with offseason workouts By ADAM NETTINA staff writer Bobby Wagner bobs his head enthusiastically to the music as he stretches. His teammate, Jacob Actkinson, high-steps his way from the 20-yard line to the endzone, his face focused and intense. A whistle blows in the background as the various players step out of the warm-up line, quickly running from station to station in the cool afternoon air. In the background coach Gary Andersen stands aloof, his calculating face giving no indication of either affirmation or disappointment. Just another October practice session for the Aggie football team, right? Not quite. It's March 2 and even though the stands of Romney Stadium are filled with snow instead of fans, the USU football team is hard at work preparing for a season six months away. "We're just looking to get stronger and to improve in every aspect that we can to get ready for the season," explained linebacker Wager, who led the Aggies with 114 tackles last season. Though March might be better know for the madness of the WAC and NCAA basketball tournaments, USU's football players aren't exactly taking time off to admire their hard-court peers these days. Truth be told, Andersen's Aggies have been hitting the weight room and the practice field for nearly three months now, engaged in part one of a three-part offseason epic that leads to their Sept. 4 showdown with the Oklahoma Sooners. "We're always talking about the upcoming season," Actkinson said. "We're always talking about how many days we are from playing Oklahoma. That's always the first thing on our minds — that first game. But we take it each step at a time, from spring ball to summer workouts. It's all in step." This Thursday, step one will conclude as USU will hold its annual "Pro Day" before breaking for Spring Break and then beginning spring practices on March 15. And while many college football fans are aware of their favorite team's spring and summer practice routines, few know about what takes place during the interval between the end of one season and the start of spring ball. The answer is the weekly mandatory workouts that USU players are finishing up. Under the watchful eye of first-year strength and conditioning coach Evan Simon, players have been engaged in almost daily afternoon workouts, ranging from weight lifting to running, since the semester began in January. The exercises themselves may vary by the day, but the mission is always the same: individual and team improvement. "Our overall mission this offseason is to get the guys tougher and to improve their work capacity, to work at a faster tempo and higher rate, and to outwork our opponent — no matter what phase of the offseason we're in," said Simon, who held a similar position under Andersen at the University of Utah before coming to Logan last August. Outworking the opponent can be an ambiguous task when that opponent is still six months away, but Simon maintained that the roughly six hours a week that USU football players spend in the weight room will pay dividends on the field come September. With workouts designed to maximize the athlete's natural ability in the areas of explosive movement and strength capability, Simon's program stresses football-specific tasks that take an athlete's gains in the weight room and translate them into better performance in gametime situations. "Everything we do ties in in some way, shape or form into getting them ready for the I See OFFSEASON, page 6 USU SOPHOMORE BOBBY WAGNER spots for classmate Jacob Actkinson during a weight-training session for the Aggie football team.Actkinson topped the weight for linebackers benching 225 pounds 22 times. CARL WILSON photo |