The weight rooms of programs such as Alabama and Oregon are nothing short of temples devoted to physical excellence. They are facilities of college football lore, and linebackers Marquis Smith and Justin Dixon never paid them any attention.
Their team, fellow Division I program Savannah State, has no 37,000-square-foot weight room. In fact, the Tigers lacked any sort of structured strength-and-conditioning program until August 2013.
“They were just going for what they know,” recalled coach Earnest Wilson III, who joined Savannah State in June 2013. “I was kind of shocked.”
As viral photos of Alabama’s facility swept seemingly everyone’s computer screens except Smith’s and Dixon’s, the Tigers moved to immediately address Wilson’s concerns. The rotating door of independent contractors was replaced by the program’s first full-time in-house strength-and-conditioning coach: Ken Coggins.
“They’ve never really developed nutritionally, strength and condition-wise, discipline-wise through strength and conditioning,” he said.
Since entering Division I in 2002, Savannah State is an abysmal 16-104. Coggins attributes the program’s shortcomings on the field to the team’s lack of discipline off it.
“They weren’t held accountable for their actions, like when a guy was late,” he said. “When I got here they found a whole different scenario. Because if you’re 10 minutes early, you’re one minute late.”
Coggins vowed to changed the culture of the program, even if he must do so on his own. Whereas some teams have an entire staff dedicated to strength and conditioning fit with assistants and even interns, Coggins is the lone supervisor of the Tigers’ weight room.
But he’s gradually getting the help he needs in the form of equipment. Savannah State finally got lifting platforms in its weight room and is the proud owner of two new Austin Legdrive machines.
“Our goal is to eventually get our own facility,” Coggins said.
The football team shares the university’s wellness center with all of Savannah State’s athletic programs and its student body and faculty.
“I’ll tell you something — once that happens you will see this program really, really, really change.”
Some changes are already evident. Over the last season, Smith and Dixon have each put on about 10 pounds each.
“I was gaining weight, but the weight was good weight and more muscle,” said Smith, a sophomore. “My body just started to transform.”
As did his and his teammate’s work ethic. Before this summer, Savannah State never had an established summer training camp. Dixon, a junior, is one of many players who took out a loan just to stay on campus with Coggins this summer.
“It was worth it,” Dixon said.
The number of Savannah State football players working out during the offseason jumped from virtually zero to nearly half the team. The Tigers have faith in Coggins and his philosophies; after all, one of his success stories includes New York Knicks coach Derek Fisher while the two were at Arkansas-Little Rock together in the ’90s.
“I first started working (Fisher) out in our weight room, which all we had were old boxes and bars and we trained these athletes in the showers,” Coggins recalled.
