CEO STRENGTH COACH is a Success Manual for Strength Coaches and Trainers
In response to Coach Ron McKeefery’s commitment to 
helping grow the strength and conditioning profession, our blogging team of 5 trainers and coaches are doing something unique this spring. We are reading the book together from cover to cover as a peer-reviewed group and will blog about it weekly over the next 5 months.
There will be many who read this book but may leave the experience without it making an impact in their lives. As the leader of our team of young millennial coaches, I believe we will be able to cast a perspective that many trainers and coaches can relate to. Since this is our 3rd blogging series, our ability to transfer and apply the concepts presented in the book will be an exciting process. You may want to read along with us, follow our personal development and provide comments below. We will be covering two chapters per week through mid-March. After that we will return to talk about each main topic and how we applied it to our professional careers.
5 Millennial Coaches invest 5 months blogging about CEO STRENGTH COACH by Ron McKeefery
In 2007 I attended my first NSCA Coaches Conference in San Antonio, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information presented. I remember three things from my time there: the River Walk, meeting Boyd Epley as he introduced the EPIC scoring system, and sitting next to Coach McKeefery on the plane. Coach Mac was patient with me sharing his knowledge and experience including Power=FXD/T.
The past 12 years I’ve attended about 30 clinics and conferences through the CSCCa, NSCA, and State clinics. I’m always encouraged by the presenters but recently my focus has moved to the hallway conversations. In fact, it was in the hallway at the NSCA Coaches Conference in 2013 in Nashville when I reconnected with Coach Mac and we talked about technology and the experience of coaching in the college setting. He said, “keep sharpening the sword and good things will happen.”
Coach Mac and I share some common ground with our family experiences, attending Junior College in the mid-west, and ups and downs of the coaching profession. My dad went to Vietnam same as his dad and came back with P.T.S.D. (Post-traumatic stress disorder). My dad was blessed to return, due to his excellent athletic ability used to save himself and some men around him. Coach Mac went to Ottawa in Kansas to play football and I went to J.C.C.C (Johnson County Community College) in Kansas City to compete in track and field and learn from my first mentor Steve “Istavan” Javorek.
Chapter 1: SIDELINED
I related to Coach Mac’s story about being SIDELINED, especially in his ups and downs in athletics. After two years as an athlete in college coach Javorek had progressed me from 70K-98K in the Power Snatch and 90K-135K in the Clean and Jerk. This progress allowed me to claim two national championships in Junior college throwing the javelin and set the national record at 226’10”. Like Coach Mac along the way I was struggling with which course of study to pursue for my career.
Do you feel SIDELINED?
The first year at the University of Tennessee I sustained an elbow injury called the “Tommy John” which devastated and SIDELINED me. Working through the recovery process turned out to be the most difficult thing in my life. I struggled with purpose, identity, and the idea that I would never compete again. As my health returned I became interested in training and began to train some of the track and field throwers when the head coach was out of town. I was hooked on coaching and began a course of study in Human Performance and looked for ways get into coaching. Moving to Texas for a Christian ministry program led to my first opportunity. At the University of North Texas I coached 100 track and field athletes to their first Sun Belt Championship.
Although my injury temporarily SIDELINED me in my own athletic career, there was a greater purpose in my trials. These things took place to grow me, redirect me, and bring me to where I am today. Take heart, you may feel SIDELINED now, but it is part of a greater success story in your life.
SEC (Southeastern Conference) Championship in Gainsville, Florida where I claimed 3rd place.
Chris Morland, MS, CSCS
Director of Strength and Conditioning/HPE Teacher
Educator and Coach | Visionary
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“The views, opinions, and judgments expressed in this message are solely those of the authors and peer reviewers. The contents have been reviewed by any a professional team of contributors but not approved by any other outside entity including the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh.”
