Blue White Illustrated

111 E. Beaver Ave s State College, PA 16801 www.The-Phyrst.com 814.234.4406 137 Elmwood St. s State College, PA 16801 www.HappyValleyBeer.com Wood-fire Grill 12 Beers on Tap 200 Year Old Barn 821 Cricklewood Dr. s Toftrees, State College www.AmericanAleHouse.net 814.237.9701 s Piano Bar s Sommelier 814.238.1406 814.234.7700 s 1611 Atherton St. s State College 814.941.7788 s Plank Rd. Exit s Altoona www.ChampsSportsGrill.net s Best Game Bar s Large Groups Welcome c lc e W We s p u o r G e g r a L s a e B m a st G e B s S n S h 1 A 1 6 1 0 0 7 7 4. 3 2 4. 1 8 me co r a l l C S r G s rt o p S s p m a h C . www s t i x . E d k R n a l P s 8 8 7 7 1. 4 9 . 4 1 8 S s . t n S o t r e h t 1 A 1 6 1 s 0 0 7 7 4. 3 2 4. 1 8 t e n . l l i r na o o t l A e g e l l o C e at t S been encouraging players to take advan- tage of hills, if they happen to have one nearby. "We're a huge hill program," he said. "One of the challenges with some of our Florida guys is finding a hill, but we're pushing hills, we're pushing backpacks or book bags on hills, we're pushing a lot of different work out there." One thing they're definitely not push- ing is trespassing onto outdoor high school facilities. "We had a lot of what we call fence-jumpers, guys getting into high school fields, and the security in the local area is getting a lot more strin- gent with that," Galt said. "I'm telling my guys, don't break the law getting into high school fields." Some players have access to parks or have enough room in the backyard to do cone drills. They may not have cones, though, so they'll use water bottles or whatever else is handy. Said Galt, "I think some of our field situations have been very creative." Plastic bottles might be a low-tech so- lution, but major-college programs have also been using high-tech methods to help keep players in top condition in an- ticipation of football's return. Alabama, for instance, made sure all its players were equipped with Apple Watches to monitor their activity and sleep pat- terns. Galt isn't so sure the Crimson Tide's approach will pass muster with the NCAA, which prohibits coaches from overseeing players' workouts at certain times of the year. But there are other ways of checking in with players that are permissible, and Penn State's staff has been taking advantage of those opportunities. Galt said that the team's five-member strength and conditioning staff has been reaching out to players individually five times a week. The staff is using text messaging, voice calls and FaceTime and wants three of those five check-ins to be via phone or video. "We're just talking to every kid," Galt said. "We have our team divided into five parts, because there are five football strength coaches. There's a little bit of feedback from them if they want to be forthcoming, but most of the conversa- tion is us helping them with program- ming, explaining the movements they could do, giving them alternatives if they don't have the equipment to do something. It's just [a matter of] helping them through that, giving them alterna- tives. We have guys say, hey, my school is closed down, I can't really run today. So, do you have a hill? Well, then you might want to try that. That's an option for you if you want. A lot of it is on-the- fly programming. That's what we're spending most of our time with. "And then we're just giving them feedback and trying to keep them straight nutritionally and sleepwise. So it's mostly encouragement, it's mostly motivation, since everything is volun- tary. But I think the kids like it, because they know that we care and they know it's important to us, and they know that this is all we have and everybody else is trying to do the same thing. And obvi- ously, being Penn State, we're trying to do it better. So I think they all under- stand that, and I think they've bought into it." ■ DWIGHT GALT Steve Manuel

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