Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/955638
emphasize the movement part," he said. "But here, I believe that's really impor- tant. Strength and power without move- ment are worthless for football. … The running workouts take a lot out of you over in Holuba, but they've done a great job bouncing back every day, and the next day getting a hard lift in and getting a hard run in. "I think one of the keys to this year has been consistency. They've been very, very consistent in everything they've done. … We have a lot of different initia- tives right now to try to really work on recovery. Kayla Matrunick has been phenomenal as our new head nutrition- ist. She's got a class right now with like 14 guys. We've got a bunch of nutritional classes that she teaches every two weeks, and that's been very beneficial. It's 2018, and this won't do you any good at all if you don't sleep right, if you don't eat right and you don't take care of your body. So those finer things are what we're really trying to do to get over this hump and get where we need to go this year." Galt talked extensively in late February about the Lions' progress during winter workouts. Here's what he had to say: ON THE EARLY ENROLLEES We have six midyear [enrollees] right now, and they have been phenomenal. They've been great. As you guys know, it's different coming in in January than coming in in June. You're out on an island a little bit, and the academic support and student services have done a great job integrat- ing these guys with all of the different things they have going on. But from a strength perspective, they've been phe- nomenal. We came in here, we tested them out thoroughly. After we did that, we just started cranking, and they joined right in. They went right in with the group right away, and they definitely all earned respect. They've all been ac- countable, they're all doing a great job in school, and it's really a great group of guys. So we're really pleased with them. So we'll see. They're six months early, so we'll see if somebody could possibly help us this year. ON MICAH PARSONS Micah has done really well. … Obviously, he's a five-star kid and kind of renowned in the entire country, but when you come up here the stars disappear. So Micah came in and did a great job, and the older players have been great mentors to him. Instead of being the five star, sixth-ranked kid in the country, he became one of the guys. You would never know by the way he acts. He works just like everybody else. He's fit in really well. Not a big talker, but he's extremely motivated to be the best player he can be. So it's really been a pleasure. I train the linebackers, and it's been really a pleasure training him. ON THE TOP WINTER PERFORMERS Ob- viously, DaeSean Hamilton kind of left his legacy with Juwan Johnson, and he is a trained killer. He's done a great job. He's one of our top, top guys. Another guy who has really done a great job is Will Fries, who played left tackle last year and came in as a redshirt freshman and did a really good job. Redshirt sophomore tight end Danny Dalton has been phenomenal. He works on every- thing he does. One guy who's been really good who's just been dinged his entire career is John Petrishen. And John Petr- ishen has really paid his dues. He's had a number of [injury] situations. But he's been healthy [lately] and he's doing a great job. He's really, really working hard. Another guy who's done a great job is Lamont Wade. He came in and did a nice job last year, filled a nice role for us. We obviously lost all four of our sec- ondary [starters] this past year, hope- fully all to the NFL. I think Lamont is in there, he's like a piranha in a small pool right now. He's really been phenomenal. I'd say that's our top five. BIG LIFT Red- shirt fresh- man wide receiver K.J. Hamler takes part in a lifting session while Galt looks on. The Lions held 32 workouts from January through early March. Photo by Nate Bauer

