Make the Big Time Where You're At | Sam McGriff

Make the Big Time Where You're At | Sam McGriff

Sam McGriff has been the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Pembroke Hill School since 2013. He came into the field through a nontraditional path, earning his degree at Mizzou on an ROTC scholarship before serving in the Navy, then working as a personal trainer before Pembroke Hill hired him to supervise the weight room after school. McGriff describes those early years plainly. There was no set culture, no established standards, and attendance was entirely voluntary. Rather than trying to overhaul the room on day one, he built trust first, with athletes, then with sport coaches, and let structure follow. Each season he picked one change to implement fully instead of stacking several half-finished ideas on top of each other. That approach produced a record board, then a PR bell that started as a wall-mounted piece of gym equipment and is now a fixture wheeled out for campus-wide events. It produced "fuzz up," Pembroke Hill's plate-return standard, and a color-coded block system (red, white, blue, silver) that gives voluntary lifters something concrete to chase even with zero mandatory attendance. McGriff also built an Exercise Science class into the school day, giving him room to teach nutrition and recovery in real depth instead of squeezing it into the last five minutes of a session. Thirteen years in, McGriff's advice for younger coaches is straightforward: stop chasing the next job before you've proven what you can build at the one you have. Key Takeaways Change happens one standard at a time. McGriff rolled out a record board, then a PR bell, then the "fuzz up" standard, then a block system, letting each one take hold before introducing the next. Trust comes before culture. He built buy-in with athletes first, then sport coaches, before anything got labeled a rule. The color-coded block system (red, white, blue, silver) gives voluntary lifters a real standard to chase even with zero mandatory attendance. A dedicated Exercise Science class does more for nutrition and recovery education than anything said between sets during a session. Playing the long game means measuring impact by what you build where you are, not by chasing the next job. Quote "If I can't have an impact here, at this level, then how am I going to have an impact at the next level?" - Sam McGriff, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Pembroke Hill School Connect with Sam McGriff: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coachmcgriff/ Pembroke Hill School - https://www.pembrokehill.org/athletics/strength-and-conditioning

Building Buy-In Before Day One | Kevin Rodriguez

Most strength coaches get weeks to settle into a new job. Kevin Rodriguez got four days. Kevin Rodriguez's path to Siena wasn't a straight line, but it was fast at the end. After building the strength program from scratch at Delta State and spending four years at UT-Chattanooga working with men's basketball, women's golf, and beach volleyball, Rodriguez accepted the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach job at Siena and was on campus within four days. He credits a mix of prayer, self-reflection, and honest conversations with mentors, including former UT-Chattanooga head coach Dan Earl, for helping him make the call. Once he arrived, Rodriguez treated the first weeks like an audit. He got every player's phone number from the director of operations and texted personal introductions before he'd even found a place to live. From there, he assessed the weight room, met the training staff, and ran team lifts built less around programming and more around establishing standards, energy, and trust. Rodriguez calls it going back to the same intangibles he built at Chattanooga. The location changes. The standard doesn't. Rodriguez also gets specific about how he manages pressure and emotion, both his own and his athletes'. A habit he picked up as a graduate assistant at Mississippi State, rehearsing team talks and workout explanations out loud in the car, is still part of his routine before every big moment, podcasts included. He also leans on a mantra passed down from a football coach at Delta State: take it personal, but don't be sensitive. It's the same approach he brings to coaching players through emotional moments on the court, treating them like adults instead of problems to manage. The conversation closes on expectations. Rodriguez inherited a Siena program that won its conference last season, the same situation he faced walking into UT-Chattanooga the year after a conference championship run. He talks through UT-Chattanooga's NIT championship season, a run built on patience through a rocky start, and the lesson he's carrying to Siena: enjoy the big moments, because not every coach gets one. Key Takeaways - Getting player phone numbers and sending personal introductions before arriving on campus builds trust before day one. - Rehearsing high-pressure conversations out loud, a habit from his graduate assistant days at Mississippi State, keeps him composed in team talks and media moments alike. - Take it personal, but don't be sensitive: a mantra that turns criticism into fuel instead of self-doubt. - Treating athletes like adults defuses conflict faster than trying to manage or control it. - Winning the NIT at UT-Chattanooga taught him to sit in a big moment instead of rushing back to work. Quote "Take it personal, but don't be sensitive." — Kevin Rodriguez, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Siena College

Presence, Not Permanence | Ryan Horn

Ryan Horn has spent 20 years building strength programs, and almost none of that time has looked stable from the outside. Horn's path runs through Robert Morris, Virginia Commonwealth (where he became the school's first full-time strength coach), Tulsa, and seven years at Wake Forest under Danny Manning. After being let go from Wake Forest following COVID, Horn spent two years outside college athletics entirely, training soldiers with the 75th Ranger Regiment in Savannah, Georgia. From there it was Wichita State, Drake, a return home to West Virginia, and now Indiana. Horn and host Connor Agnew dig into what that kind of instability actually teaches a coach. Horn's answer keeps coming back to one idea: stop chasing permanence and start chasing presence. Roles end. Jobs change. What matters is whether you were fully in it while you had it. He connects this directly to mentorship, arguing that a good mentor's job gets harder, not easier, because they take the time to teach instead of just execute. And he's candid about the trap of comparing career timelines on social media, pointing out that the context and luck behind someone else's fast rise almost never makes it into the post. The conversation closes on family. Horn's son is now an Olympic weightlifter who interns under him at Indiana, and Horn talks openly about what it's meant to coach alongside his own kid, and about how losing both his parents in recent years reshaped how he thinks about time with the athletes and people in front of him right now. KEY TAKEAWAYS - Seek presence and impact in a role, not permanence. Every job has an expiration date, and treating it otherwise costs you the time you actually have in it. - A real mentor's job gets harder, not easier, because they take the time to teach instead of just execute. - Comparing your career timeline to someone else's on social media ignores the context and luck behind their path. - Avoid becoming the coach who dismisses a new idea because "we did that 20 years ago." Curiosity is the job, not a phase of it. - Losing both parents reshaped how Horn thinks about finite time with his family and his athletes. QUOTE BLOCK "There's no permanence in any role. It's just presence." - Ryan Horn, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Indiana University

Building Grit in Big Ten Volleyball with Eddie Ramirez

Eddie Ramirez took an unconventional route into strength and conditioning. He spent his teenage years and early twenties as a competitive breakdancer before a friend showed him that college strength coaching was even a career path. Internships at Syracuse and Texas followed, and by the time he wrapped his stint with Texas football in 2019, he knew this was what he wanted to do for good. Now in his fourth year at Indiana University, Ramirez works with volleyball, men's and women's swimming and diving, and men's golf. Volleyball has been his primary focus, and he's been direct with his athletes from day one. Competing with programs like Wisconsin, Purdue, and Nebraska, teams that lean on deep talent pools, meant Indiana needed something else to close the gap. Ramirez calls it grit, and he builds it by refusing to sugarcoat hard training while staying honest with his athletes about his own tough stretches. That same directness shapes how he works with the program's international athletes. Rather than expecting them to adjust to a new sport system and a new country on the same timeline as everyone else, Ramirez has taught himself greetings and coaching cues in his athletes' native languages, including Russian and Turkish, to shorten the adjustment period and build trust early. Key Takeaways - Competing with programs that out-talent you requires a deliberate culture decision, not just harder workouts. Ramirez tells his volleyball team upfront that training will be uncomfortable, and backs it up by being vulnerable about his own hard moments. - International athletes are managing two adjustments at once: a new training system and a new country. Ramirez shortens that gap by learning basic phrases and coaching cues in their language. - Skill progression should be athlete-paced, not calendar-paced. If a full clean takes a year to teach safely, that's the timeline he uses. - His own path into the field was nontraditional. Five years as a competitive breakdancer came before he even knew college strength and conditioning existed as a job. - He's actively working to close a skill gap this year: getting sharper with GPS and data tracking through Catapult. Quote Block "It's not because I hate you guys or think you're out of shape. We've got to have a little extra when we're competing against these big-name teams." - Eddie Ramirez, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, Indiana University

Building Better Coaches with Devin Young

Devin Young, Senior Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Pittsburgh, did not take a straight path into the profession. He grew up chasing a hockey career through the junior ranks, walked on at Fitchburg State, and did not make the team. That setback pushed him into exercise science and a string of internships at UMass Lowell, Eastern Michigan, Princeton, St. Francis, and James Madison before he landed his first full time job at North Carolina A&T. Young was the department's director during COVID, running a football strength program with roughly 100 athletes, five platforms, a fraction of the normal equipment, and a single part time, uncertified assistant. He walks Connor Agnew through the daily problem solving that era demanded and how it shaped the coach and communicator he is today. The conversation centers on what Young says has done more for his growth than any book: investing directly in mentors through site visits, cohorts, and phone calls, because a mentor can answer the follow up question a book cannot. He connects that philosophy to Pitt's staff culture, weekly continuing education, and the summer internship program he now runs, where he is trying to give young coaches the same head start his own mentors gave him. * Young's fastest growth as a coach came from investing in mentors and site visits rather than books alone, calling it the difference between reading about a problem and actually getting it answered. * Directing a strength program during COVID with no staff and constantly rotating athlete pods forced Young to build rapid problem solving and communication skills that still define how he coaches today. * Pitt's staff runs weekly continuing education and full peer reviewed program audits, using force plate data and KPIs to catch blind spots without turning it into a competition. * Posting workouts and running a handwritten whiteboard series forces him to be certain of what he is teaching before it goes public, sharpening his own knowledge in the process. * Pitt's summer internship runs on daily meetings, a full 15 week programming project, guest round tables with outside coaches, and live coaching drills that get progressively harder, built to give interns the same mentorship head start he got. "I'm a big believer in finding people who are doing what you believe in and reaching out to them. Go intern for them. That's the best way to learn, because now you're hands-on, learning and doing at the same time." Guest: Devin Young, Senior Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, University of Pittsburgh * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devin_sc_coach/ [https://www.instagram.com/devin_sc_coach/] * Versatile Training Academy, Devin's side company (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/vta_sports_performance_/ [https://www.instagram.com/vta_sports_performance_/] | linktr.ee/VTAcademy [https://linktr.ee/VTAcademy] * University of Pittsburgh Strength & Conditioning (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/pitt_sportsperformance/ [https://www.instagram.com/pitt_sportsperformance/] * Devin's staff bio, Pitt Athletics: https://pittsburghpanthers.com/staff-directory/devin-young/3836 [https://pittsburghpanthers.com/staff-directory/devin-young/3836] * Talkin' Pitt Podcast: Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oJDVPMKYK2erbS0dSNgt2] | Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talkin-pitt-by-pitt-sports-performance/id1677557747] Keywords: Devin Young, University of Pittsburgh, Pitt strength and conditioning, strength coach mentorship, COVID training protocols, program audits, continuing education, Talkin' Pitt podcast, internship program, Connor Agnew, Samson Strength Coach Collective