I love to show this video of Kevin from The Office when people ask or wonder how a "Big Guy" like me can be a great speed coach.
Yeah, it's no surprise that I was never trained to be a sprinter in my athletic days, and was never really known as a Speedster. So why now in my coaching career should people believe that I am a great speed coach? The short answer to that is: I'm not stuck in the old way of training speed. There's always been an old myth about an athlete's speed being a God-given trait, and that you could never coach speed to an athlete who didn't have it. So coaches would train speed by running athletes till they could barely walk, and even though this may have gotten athletes into better "shape", it wouldn't make them faster, and this form of speed training became the norm.
As coaches, it's normal for us to coach our athletes the same way that we were coached in our glory days. I'm not saying this is always a bad thing, and I am 100% guilty of doing this. The drills and terminology that we used when I played O-Line in high school and college, are the same way I coach my O-Line today. It's just a habit that is hard to break as coaches. So for today's coaches, it's easy to fall into the old ways of speed training because that's the only way they know how to coach it. But if there is one aspect of athletics that has drastically changed over the years, and should not be coached the way it was 20 years ago, it's SPEED!
When I first found out about Tony Holler's Feed the Cats Speed Program, I loved how different it was and was excited to try it out. Before I did though, I asked older track coaches what they thought about his program and they all said his program was a joke, even though they had never tried it. Rather than listening to the critics, I became curious about trying something new, took a deep dive into his program, and used a ton of Tony's ideas to help build Big Cat Training.
So my mindset of accepting the new ways of training, studying ways to be a better speed coach, and not being stuck in the past ways of training is what makes me a great speed coach, and is what makes this Big Cat Training program one of the best speed programs in Montana. There will always be skeptics when they see the Best Speed Program in Montana is led by and created by a 300 lb. ex-lineman. To them, all I would say is, "Come Try It & Find Out", or as the great Ted Lasso said,
"Be Curious, Not Judgmental"