NFL-bound players stay with the highly successful strength and conditioning program at USC to prepare for the Draft
By Ben Malcolmson
USCRipsIt
PeteCarroll.com
Unlike many of the other big names in this weekend’s NFL Draft, linebacker Keith Rivers didn’t go to a fancy training facility in Florida, New Jersey, Arizona or Timbuktu to prepare for the NFL.
He stayed at USC.
And he wasn’t alone.
Rivers and 12 of his fellow recently graduated senior Trojan teammates trained in the comforts of Heritage Hall and under the experienced guidance of USC strength and conditioning coach Chris Carlisle.
“Being here at USC, Coach Carlisle has gotten me into my best football playing shape,” said linebacker Thomas Williams, who had a superb showing at Pro Day on April 2. “Work out here and he’ll definitely get you better and better. Staying here was a no-brainer.”
The national tendency sees Draft-bound players signing with an agent, moving to a faraway place and training with a trendy new workout instructor. But the recent trend at USC sees players remaining with the same strength and conditioning program that developed them into some of the nation’s top athletes.
“Just because you graduate, you’re not done being a Trojan,” said Rivers, who’s projected to be picked in the Top 10 of Saturday’s NFL Draft. “Training here has been really good and it propelled me to a great Pro Day.”
Cornerback Terrell Thomas — and the other 12 players who remained with Carlisle’s program during the last several months in preparation for the Draft — couldn’t agree more.
“We were born and raised in this program, we became men in this weight room,” Thomas said. “Coming back, it’s been a really good feeling to be around the program again.”
It’s simply a testament to the success of Carlisle’s program — both while in college and on a player’s way out.
“Coach Carlisle has fostered a really special relationship with our guys and has developed them into some of the country’s finest athletes because they trust him and his system,” Coach Pete Carroll said. “We’re very proud of the fact that our guys want to stay around and continue being a part of the program even after they’re done playing because it shows that we’re doing something right.”
Besides this year’s crop of players, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Troy Polamalu and Carson Palmer — three of them Heisman Trophy winners and all four among the highest paid at their positions — are just a few of the other former Trojans who stayed at USC to train for the NFL Draft.
“We have had a great history of people who have stayed with us to train who have met or surpassed the test numbers they achieved because they trained with us,” said Carlisle, who’s entering his 23rd year of strength coaching, and eighth year at USC. “One-hundred percent of the time, athletes who stay with us will run as well or better than before.”
Carlisle attributes the success of the program for outgoing players to the continuity of training and the familiarity the NFL-bound players experience, both in terms of personnel and workout regimens.
“Our system of training is consistent to what they’ve been doing the last four years,” Carlisle said. “When they go off to train at these training facilities, they have to learn a new system of training. So when they go to run at the Combine, their body is not used to these new techniques so they won’t be fluid doing it.
“They don’t have the same fluidity they had when they trained here.”
Players say the comfort level is a major deciding factor in choosing to remain at USC to train.
“You want to be in an environment where you’re comfortable,” Williams said. “I’ve been here for five years, and Coach Carlisle has gotten me into the best football shape, so why would I go somewhere else where I don’t know the people and it’s a new environment? Being here, you sleep in your own bed, you’re working out with your old teammates, you know the strength coaches, you know what they’re going to ask of you.”
Perhaps the most important aspect of this familiarity is the strength coaches’ time-tested knowledge of each player’s body and physical capabilities and hindrances. Carlisle pointed out the importance of knowing the history of injuries to avoid re-injury before Pro Day or the Combine.
“If I go somewhere else, it’s going to take them a week to 10 days to get them to know my body,” Williams said. “That’s two week’s wasted time where I could’ve been getting better. Coach Carlisle and his staff already know my body and already know what it takes. They raised us, from 18 year old kids to 22 year old men.”
Carlisle also highlights the knowledge of all the techniques and systems at USC as another key reason players who stay to train in Heritage Hall perform better in their combine tests.
“It’s something they’ve been going through since the day they walked in here,” Carlisle said. “That way, when they put their hand down at Indianapolis or at our Pro Day, they don’t have to think about how to run fast. They know how to run fast.”
Besides staying in a familiar environment, players also have the opportunity to take class and finish their degrees by working out at USC. Williams is wrapping up a Spanish class this semester, while Rivers and center Matt Spanos also took classes this spring to complete their degrees.
So while they take tests to progress toward a degree in their spare time, players are also preparing for a different kind of test in the weight room. Carlisle and his staff switch gears from how they train the college athletes because the NFL-bound players aren’t training to be better football players, but instead to be better test-takers. The numbers they produce at the Combine or Pro Day determine where they get drafted this weekend.
“We aren’t training them to be a football player, we’re training them to take a test,” Carlisle said. “We’ve been doing this our whole life. Training athletes to move is what our life is about. To get an athlete ready for a combine or a Pro Day fits right into that.”
The NFL-bound Trojans also praised the trustworthy individual attention Carlisle and his staff gave the players throughout the four-month journey from the Rose Bowl to Draft day.
“It’s an extension of what Coach Carroll wants this program to be — we take care of them from cradle to grave,” Carlisle said. “And the trust factor is huge. They know we have the best of motives to see them succeed and present the best picture as possible to the NFL.”
If for nothing else, Carlisle’s program has withstood the test of time. As trendy workout regimens come and go with the passing of every infomercial, Carlisle’s unique movement-based program has been tested and approved through 23 years of coaching, all while he’s picked up special elements along the way from some of the industry’s brightest minds.
Unlike what happens at many training facilities, Carlisle said his training schedule isn’t something “some guy told me one time or something I read in a book or pamphlet.”
“I understand how the program has evolved over time,” Carlisle said. “I’m looking at something that’s been evolving and changing just like our athletes have evolved and changed. And so it’s a constant research process we’ve developed here of making the best athletes in the country even better.”
And maybe the highest honor Carlisle’s program receives every year is the homecoming of several past Trojans, including Leinart, Bush, Palmer, Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson, among others — all of whom worked out with Carlisle in preparation for the NFL Draft.
“It’s not because I’m a genius, it’s because our system works and athletes respond to our coaching because they’ve been around it,” Carlisle said. “They still feel that connection and want to be a part of things here at USC. You truly are a Trojan for life.”
• Ben Malcolmson is the Director of Online Media for USCRipsIt/PeteCarroll.com. You can contact him at Ben@PeteCarroll.com.
