Michigan Football Coaches Get Creative With Workouts Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
(CNN) - We are still months away from hearing the pads crack on the football field but this time a year is often used for strength and conditioning for high school football players at Comstock Park they had strong turnouts in the weight room prior to school being closed.
"Even before I was hired there were 30 or 40 kids in the weight room at 6 a.m. which is pretty unheard of. So I felt like the worst thing we could do was cut all those guys loose and say hey we'll see you in three weeks. So we had to get creative to find some ways to keep them engaged," said Panthers Head Coach, Doug Samuels.
Samuels and his staff took to facebook to give kids examples of how to work out on their own.
"We decided to prescribe workouts and things like that, stuff you can do at home, but that was kind of our approach. We wanted to capitalize on the momentum that we had going forward," said Samuels.
But knowing exactly who is doing the workouts is difficult.
"The kids that are super committed are going to do it, but there is no way to really tell. So we're asking kids. We started a hashtag, #GoldbloodedCP and so now when kids do their workout they can post it on social media and use that hashtag and now we can kind of reflect back on that and see who is really doing it and who really brought it into the change we are trying to make here," said Samuels.
Another variable for Samuels and his staff is being new to Comstock Park. It becomes harder to get to know the kids when there is no school or meetings. So they are posting meet the coaches videos.
"We've got some virtual clinics for our players setup on huddle where our defensive coordinator Darren Smith came up with the idea, in order to install some of our defensive stuff. You know we came up with the idea just to put together a huddle clinic and we will share it with the kids that way and that way they are getting to know the expectations that we have moving forward," he said.
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