"Kannapolis Strength and Conditioning"
"Where The Weak Become Strong"
"The Strong Become Great"
"The Great Become Wonders"
Coach Todd Hagler
("We like to move bars as fast, and as safely as possible")
Todd Hagler:
What goes into the making of a Wonder? Much more than one realizes in this modern age of athletic development, and at Kannapolis strength and conditioning is an essential component to success. I Just recently had the opportunity to step inside the walls of the A.L Brown High School Strength and Conditioning Complex for a quick look into this facility to satisfy my own curiosity. It was at this time I had the privilege of being introduced to the man in charge of the strength and conditioning program coach Todd Hagler. From the start coach “Hag” as he is referred to by his student athletes welcomed me into the confines of the facility with open arms. A very congenial fellow when he’s not instructing invited me to come in to look around and feel free to take as many photos as I chose. Shortly after his invitation Coach “Hag” went into full drill instructor mode barking out commands as any marine corp. gunnery sergeant would do with his recruits. I stepped back and quietly observed from the distance the routine that seemed to flow effortlessly by his student athletes. With each sound of the whistle and a few verbal commands different work stations would come to life with activity. It was then I realized that far more goes into what we as fans see on Friday nights than meets the eye.
Coach Hagler has one philosophy to strength and conditioning and that is “No student athlete stays the same in his class. You are either progressing or you’re stepping backwards.” Its this philosophy that has garnered coach Hagler with the well deserved title as one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the State of North Carolina, and he belongs to the Wonders. I sat down with Coach Hagler early one morning before the beginning of the school day and spoke with him about what he does and the so called method to his madness. Coach Hagler graciously granted me my request and we proceeded to his office that is within an easy eye shot of the massive strength and conditioning facility. My thoughts of the massive weight room was an initial wow, and this rivals some colleges for sure. Coach Hagler told me before coming to Kannapolis he was instructing some classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and that he long desired to get back to the high school level where he could directly affect the progression of young student athletes. Our conversation went as follows.
(FIK) How did you end up in Kannapolis coach?
(TH) I was looking to get back into teaching strength and conditioning on the high school level, and There was a guy named Paul Hoggard with Richmond County I was talking with one day. I asked him who was getting the coaching job in Kannapolis? He told me “I think Ron Massey” I thought who was Ron Massey? I never heard of him. Hoggard replied “Hes a good guy, hes been real successful at Kings Mountain, and he thought he would do really well in Kannapolis. I worked with Hal Shuler, and Daryl Barnes at Richmond County who were both very similar coaches within the program, and we all felt that if you are a real coach your goal is to coach. You don’t want a head coach standing over you all the time telling you how to do things, you want someone who will say “This is what we need to do, now go do it.” That’s how coach Massey was. He let you coach. Now if you weren’t getting things done he would want to know why, but he let you do what you were there to do.
I met coach Massey in the middle of 2000 and in June of that year we started work, I was commuting back and forth from Durham NC because that was where I was living at the time. When we started in the fall of 2001 I was still living there because my wife, and I had not yet sold our house, and if I remember correctly I would go home on Saturday and come in on Sunday from Durham and on Sunday nights I would either stay here at the office or go to my parents in Monroe and stay there until Tuesday. I would then drive to Durham on Tuesday night come back to Kannapolis on Wednesday, stay with my parents on Wednesday and Thursday night. Then on Friday night I usually just slept at the office after we graded team film, and I did that till we finally sold our house in either February or March of 2001 and that was a good thing. Its been great here, and this is a great place to work. I’ll tell you what, I don’t know of a place that’s any better than this.
(FIK) Can you give me a brief overview of what strength and conditioning is all about here at Kannapolis.
(TH) Strength and Conditioning is a course of instruction that is open to every student that attends A.L Brown High School. We encourage all of our athletes to participate in this course. Now I’m a football coach and I have a vested interest in the football program so of course I want these kids to be big and strong for football, but the way we train I feel can benefit all sports. As you can see the weight room it is mostly free weights with five machines in the whole weight room. We emphasize ground based weight training which means for the most part we are trying to remain vertical because in sports you are standing up. When you stand up, and move weight it is more multi joint specific, and it involves more of your core which is the big buzz word today, but in my day it was referred to as your trunk. We do a lot of things standing up and we actually train much different than say a body builder would train. We try to incorporate a lot of speed in our training in the weight room. We want to move bars as fast as we can safely move them. We use a lot of Olympic lifts which are referred to as the Clean, Jerk, Snatch, and try to teach the proper technique in that style and of course the traditional power type lifts such as the Squats and the Bench methods. The bench is probably the least important, however a lot of college coaches will tell you its not important at all, but I think for high school kids who are just beginning to develop their upper body strength when they get into high school its very important component not just for performance, but for their health as well. That is our core philosophy, but again everything we do is predicated on speed. We want them to be big and strong, but if we have to sacrifice strength to be faster then we will do that.
(FIK) How many assistants do you have helping at any one given time?
(TH) Coach Galloway is the only full time assistant with me right now, but we have other coaches who pitch in and assist wherever they are needed. Coach Reeves does a really good job and Jerome Davis who is our head wrestling coach helps us out a lot, and when Coach Massey was here he helped as well. Coach Massey was very good to me, and he had trust in my abilities, and he just let me run with it. Antoine Nelson and Lanny Gray all help in the summer time. That’s one thing coach Newsome has asked me is do I have enough help, because he told me there were times at Butler it would just be him and one other guy in the weight room in the summer. So we try to have at least four or five guys during that time with their eyes on people. When kids see that from the coaches they understand how important this is for them.
(FIK) What is the average ratio of Athletes to students in a typical strength and conditioning class?
(TH) In a class I would say its probably a sixty/forty split of athletes to students, but we tell the kids when they come in here that we are going to train you like an athlete whether you are an athlete or not, so they all get the same training regardless.
(FIK) What must a student athlete do to satisfactorily complete a course in strength and conditioning?
(TH) Participation. They have a card they fill out that charts their progress throughout the course and they fill it out each day. They will get graded on that days participation and the percentages they have to meet. At the end of the nine weeks if they have completed all their work for the most part are usually going to get 100%. Now there are other ways to look at a persons progression. The one thing I don’t think you can do as far a measuring gains is compare someone who has been there for a while to someone who is brand new to the program. The new kid isn’t going to be getting that much stronger because he is just learning how to do it and he is being more efficient with his movement where as the older kid already knows this. Every gain he makes is going to be a true strength gain.
(FIK) Can you tell me the difference between a standard strength and conditioning class compared to Summer Warriors?
(TH) The class is comprised mainly of football players, but there will be some soccer players as well as baseball players to come in, and that’s fine if that’s what they want to do. As far as the similarities to a regular strength and conditioning class there is very little difference, however the main difference is the volume they are running. When we get into summer warriors it has now gone from off season to pre season and you have to ramp up the conditioning aspect of the program to make sure we are ready to be on the field and play football for a full four quarters.
(TH) Strength and Conditioning is a course of instruction that is open to every student that attends A.L Brown High School. We encourage all of our athletes to participate in this course. Now I’m a football coach and I have a vested interest in the football program so of course I want these kids to be big and strong for football, but the way we train I feel can benefit all sports. As you can see the weight room it is mostly free weights with five machines in the whole weight room. We emphasize ground based weight training which means for the most part we are trying to remain vertical because in sports you are standing up. When you stand up, and move weight it is more multi joint specific, and it involves more of your core which is the big buzz word today, but in my day it was referred to as your trunk. We do a lot of things standing up and we actually train much different than say a body builder would train. We try to incorporate a lot of speed in our training in the weight room. We want to move bars as fast as we can safely move them. We use a lot of Olympic lifts which are referred to as the Clean, Jerk, Snatch, and try to teach the proper technique in that style and of course the traditional power type lifts such as the Squats and the Bench methods. The bench is probably the least important, however a lot of college coaches will tell you its not important at all, but I think for high school kids who are just beginning to develop their upper body strength when they get into high school its very important component not just for performance, but for their health as well. That is our core philosophy, but again everything we do is predicated on speed. We want them to be big and strong, but if we have to sacrifice strength to be faster then we will do that.
(FIK) How many assistants do you have helping at any one given time?
(TH) Coach Galloway is the only full time assistant with me right now, but we have other coaches who pitch in and assist wherever they are needed. Coach Reeves does a really good job and Jerome Davis who is our head wrestling coach helps us out a lot, and when Coach Massey was here he helped as well. Coach Massey was very good to me, and he had trust in my abilities, and he just let me run with it. Antoine Nelson and Lanny Gray all help in the summer time. That’s one thing coach Newsome has asked me is do I have enough help, because he told me there were times at Butler it would just be him and one other guy in the weight room in the summer. So we try to have at least four or five guys during that time with their eyes on people. When kids see that from the coaches they understand how important this is for them.
(FIK) What is the average ratio of Athletes to students in a typical strength and conditioning class?
(TH) In a class I would say its probably a sixty/forty split of athletes to students, but we tell the kids when they come in here that we are going to train you like an athlete whether you are an athlete or not, so they all get the same training regardless.
(FIK) What must a student athlete do to satisfactorily complete a course in strength and conditioning?
(TH) Participation. They have a card they fill out that charts their progress throughout the course and they fill it out each day. They will get graded on that days participation and the percentages they have to meet. At the end of the nine weeks if they have completed all their work for the most part are usually going to get 100%. Now there are other ways to look at a persons progression. The one thing I don’t think you can do as far a measuring gains is compare someone who has been there for a while to someone who is brand new to the program. The new kid isn’t going to be getting that much stronger because he is just learning how to do it and he is being more efficient with his movement where as the older kid already knows this. Every gain he makes is going to be a true strength gain.
(FIK) Can you tell me the difference between a standard strength and conditioning class compared to Summer Warriors?
(TH) The class is comprised mainly of football players, but there will be some soccer players as well as baseball players to come in, and that’s fine if that’s what they want to do. As far as the similarities to a regular strength and conditioning class there is very little difference, however the main difference is the volume they are running. When we get into summer warriors it has now gone from off season to pre season and you have to ramp up the conditioning aspect of the program to make sure we are ready to be on the field and play football for a full four quarters.
("This is a great place to work. I dont know of a place thats any better")
Todd Hagler:
(FIK) I know due to NCHSAA regulations there are certain things you cant mandate, but would you say that summer warriors is something that is encouraged to all the athletes?
(TH) (laughing) It is strictly voluntary. No athlete at A.L Brown High School is required to participate in this program. Its voluntary, but highly recommended for the athletes. They know already what is going to be demanded of them on the field and their work ethic alone makes them want to participate. We always have great participation in the summer warrior program. Last year I believe we had 105 athletes who participated so it’s a good thing all the way around. The kids enjoy it and they feel like they are accomplishing something in the process.
(FIK) Speaking on work ethic, What is the work ethic of the kids coming over from the middle school these days?
(TH) We have a very good work ethic here. Once the kids get into it they work extremely hard. When they first get here they are typical ninth graders, but when they realize what they are working towards and the tradition they are now a part of they understand, and the other kids who have already been there will hold them accountable. They understand what is expected and what they need to do in order to get to that next level. They also know year in and year out you’re not going to out athlete everybody every year and you are going to have to work to get better.
(FIK) Do you emphasize strength and conditioning as part of training to the coaches in the middle school?
(TH) They do it as much as they can. They don’t have the classes set up as much as we would like to see them have it yet, but the coaches come over here and meet with us and do some workshops with us to get a better understanding, but I think eventually we will all get on the same page where that aspect of training is concerned.
After my interview with coach Hagler I formed a new understanding of what all goes into the making of the athletes we see every Friday night on the field, and how much time and effort goes into it. I will say this about coach Hagler and my impressions of him. I don’t think for one minute that anyone who participates in coach “Hags” Strength and Conditioning Program will not progress. He wont allow that. I saw first hand the passion at which coach Hagler goes at this unseen and very under appreciated aspect of game preparation. I feel as long as there are coaches like Todd Hagler running the show in the weight room at A.L. Brown our oponents can rest assured of one thing. They will be facing some of the most physically prepared and highly trained athletes they will face in the State of North Carolina, and that is no exaggeration. Friday Nights in K-Town would like to personally thank Coach Hagler for allowing me to take this behind the scenes look into Strength and Conditioning at A.L Brown High School, and for the valuable insight you have given into the making of our Wonders.