DEL.ICIO.USCoach Johnson's drills 'hardest we've ever run'
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/23/08
Quiet and darkness cover Rose Bowl Field at 5:45 a.m.
A dozen Georgia Tech football players sit on benches and seem too sleepy to say anything. The sun won't rise for two hours; you don't need to take a poll to know the players wish they were still in bed, too.
 Johnny Craword/AJC | ||
| Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson instructs players during a 5:45 a.m pre-spring conditioning. The Jackets begin spring practice Monday. | ||
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Five minutes later, the guys on the benches are outnumbered by their later-arriving teammates standing on the practice field, and things aren't so quiet anymore. The offensive linemen, as usual, find their own private joke to laugh about, and the coaches start fraternizing with the team, and then it's 5:55 and strength coach Eric Ciano blows his whistle and chaos suddenly turns to order.
Georgia Tech's final pre-spring conditioning workout has begun.
It starts with 40-yard warm-up exercises, with players running forward, backward, sideways, stiff-legged, high-kneed. They wear numbered practice jerseys over shorts or sweatpants, and they're starting to get loose, and at 6 a.m. the whistle blows again and the running stops and the stretching begins.
Five minutes later, the whistle blows again, and after a brief team huddle groups start sprinting full-speed in all directions, to workout stations set up along the sides and ends of the field. From now on the running never really stops, except for a three-minute water break and the five seconds it takes for the groups to huddle for a quick shout of "Team Wins!" after moving to a new station.
Near one end zone, a dizzying drill requires players to touch a towel on the ground as they run around it. Then they run to the next towel and do another, similar, leaning 360.
At another station, players assume a pushup position, then roll to one side or the other, then do it again.
Other stations require players to weave through cones, or, eyes up, step over pads, or simulate dropping back into coverage to the left or the right.
It's all done full-speed, and so are the runs from station to station at the end of each two-minute period, and it's not long before sweat drips down faces and mouths gape for air.
Linemen puff alongside defensive backs, running backs next to kickers, sophomores beside juniors, in groups that seem randomly assigned.
"Finish! Finish!" Ciano yells, as fatigue makes each drill harder and harder to complete. Position coaches call out encouragement and instructions with the same high energy they demand from their team.
Coach Paul Johnson watches it all, in a gold Tech hat and sweat top and blue sweatpants. It's his show, and he sets the rules.
"Let's see if you can keep it going," he tells the players during their water break. "That's the best work we've had. Find somebody to compete with."
It's 6:44 a.m., and full speed isn't what it used to be. Running back Jamaal Evans still moves fast, but linemen labor. There's no bending over, no sitting. That's not allowed. But standing up straight is becoming an effort, and hands migrate to hips as a way to prop up sagging shoulders.
Johnson makes an announcement. Assistant coaches will begin keeping score of each group. If it did the drill well, it gets a thumbs-up and moves on to the next station. A thumbs-down means the group heads to the middle of the practice field and takes a seat on the grass.
One by one, groups start dropping out, and when it happens to Calvin Booker's group he lodges a good-natured protest. Johnson tells him to sit.
"I said, 'Coach, if we get a bad call in the game, you're going to let the ref know about it,' " Booker said later. "He said, 'Yeah, that's not going to change anything.' "
"I've definitely learned Coach Johnson doesn't like excuses, whether it's a good one or not," offensive tackle Andrew Gardner said. "He doesn't want to hear it."
The no-excuses message is only one of many Johnson is sending. Consider this: He successfully convinced a bunch of worn-out players that being forced to stop and rest was a bad thing and being allowed to continue to run drills was a good thing, a reward. Each group wanted to keep getting thumbs up. Booker compared it to the fourth quarter.
"If we're down by three and the offense is not on the field, we're going to lose," Booker said. "I don't want to rest. I want to win."
Tech begins spring practice Monday. It will be the fourth spring for Gardner, and based on the conditioning drills and the word from the coaches, he expects it to be the toughest.
"This is the hardest we've run at this part of the year," he said.
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