Heat on college players to join summer workouts

Note From Editor: Nice quote from Coach Tedford

By Ray Glier, special for USA TODAY
ATHENS, Ga. — It's 8:22 a.m., and University of Georgia junior wide receiver Mario Raley already is bathed in sweat. He has just completed an 80-minute workout, including 22 minutes of running in the steamy morning heat.
Georgia football players run sprints on July 11. As many as 58 players have attended 'voluntary' workouts at the university.

Although the NCAA's rules say summer strength and conditioning programs are voluntary, he raises an eyebrow when he hears the word voluntary.
"It's mandatory to us," he said between gasps for air. "Camp is less than a month away.
"You work now or go home. If you want to be great, this is what you have to do."
Georgia is not unique in this commitment to a summer workout program. College football players at Division I schools across the country routinely stay on campus in the summer to train and practice for the coming season.
• Georgia Tech has all its scholarship players in Atlanta working out, senior defensive end Eric Henderson said. The Yellow Jackets set up four times during the day for players to work out, the first at 6 a.m.
• Georgia Southern, a I-AA powerhouse, had about 80 players participating in its summer workouts in June and July, athletic department spokesman Pat Osterman said. I-AA schools can offer 63 football scholarships, but some of those scholarships are split between two players.
• Yale, which like all Ivy League schools does not award athletic scholarships, has close to 30 players working out at school, strength and conditioning director Emil Johnson said. That number will edge toward 50 around Aug. 1, about three weeks before training camp begins, Johnson said.
• California, which ended last season ranked No. 9 in the nation — its highest ranking since 1991 — had all of its scholarship players on campus for summer conditioning, according to athletic department spokesman Herb Benenson.
• Michigan defensive tackle Mike Massey said the Wolverines were working out this summer with all their scholarship players.
Players have been staying at college in the summer for years, largely to take summer school classes. While coaches can't pinpoint a time the practice intensified, the numbers have grown since the early 1990s. When maybe 30 or 40 players stayed then, nearly everybody stays now. The Bulldogs have 101 players — veterans, incoming freshmen and walk-ons — participating in their summer workouts, which started June 6 and go through July, with players able to attend either of two sessions. On a recent day, 43 Georgia players participated in the morning workout and 58 in the afternoon.
Workouts carry risks
Summer workouts for college football players are considered "voluntary," but they are not to be taken lightly. At least three deaths have occurred at the Division I-A level since 2001. The latest was last week at Missouri, where linebacker Aaron O'Neal collapsed and died after a workout with the rest of the football team. His funeral was Monday.
In 2001, Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler collapsed and died during summer conditioning, though the school says Wheeler's death was caused by two banned diet supplements. Legal proceedings continue. Also in 2001, Florida freshman fullback Eraste Autin died six days after collapsing during a voluntary workout.
Following Wheeler's death, the NCAA passed legislation in 2003 that required medical personnel to be on hand for the summer workouts. Strength and conditioning coaches have been allowed to conduct workouts since 2000.
According to the NCAA manual, "strength and conditioning coaches conducting non-mandatory weight-training or conditioning activities shall be required to have cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and first-aid certification. In addition, a member of the institution's sports medicine staff must be present during all mandatory conditioning activities."
Less tragic, but serious, is the possibility of injury. Florida State defensive back Antonio Cromartie tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in workouts last week and is out for the season.
— By Ray Glier
Players establish the culture in the offseason and keep attendance.
"If somebody is not here," senior defensive lineman Kedric Golston said, "we'll know it by the end of the workout and see what's up. We'll make sure they are OK and not hurt, and then we'll talk."
"Everybody is committed to the other guys on the team," senior center Ryan Schnetzner said. "And if you're not here, somebody playing your position is here working to get better."
An offseason of getting ready
In Division I-A and Division I-AA, NCAA rules say football players can work out in a "non-mandatory" weight training and conditioning program in the summer with a strength coach for eight hours a week for eight weeks. Georgia's workouts are usually Monday through Thursday, with Fridays limited to running only.
The players bear down in the weight room with the steady beat of music. Dave Van Halanger, Georgia's strength and conditioning coach, is there for safety purposes but also to promote team-building and manage the process.
"We work, but we tease a lot, we try and keep it fun," Van Halanger said. "There are very, very few times where I have to get after these guys in here, because they want to be great."
The eight allowable hours a week during the summer do not include the players gathering to run plays in seven-on-seven drills with no pads. Coaches are not permitted to conduct or watch the scrimmages, which start at 4:30 p.m. at Georgia and can last two hours.
Senior quarterback D.J. Shockley is one of the players in charge of the afternoon workout, where the Bulldogs quarterbacks, running backs and receivers run the team's pass routes against the defense. Linemen, Shockley said, work on their own drills.
"This way, by the time we get to the fall camp, we're fine-tuning, guys know the plays, we have some timing together," Shockley said. "We're motioning, we're running underneath patterns, the defense is blitzing."
Reporters are not permitted to watch, though workouts are not officially sanctioned by the school.
And football players aren't alone on Georgia's campus in the summer. Rebecca Rowsey, a sophomore pre-med major on the women's basketball team, said all of the Lady Bulldogs were here in June lifting weights, playing pickup games and attending summer school.
"We would lift weights together three days a week, then we would do running and quickness and agility the other days of the week," said Rowsey, who was taking biochemistry in summer school. "We don't have to be here, but it is a good time to get some classes out of the way. And if we're at home, we don't get to talk to each other, and we get to be more laid-back when we're playing the pickup games. ... It's a great way to bond."
While the football players were on their practice field, members of Georgia's defending national champion gymnastics team were on the track running laps.
The 24/7 dilemma
In 1991, the NCAA's Division I schools — at the behest of a group of campus CEOs known as the Presidents Commission — passed a rule limiting college football players' participation in practice and film study to 20 hours a week during the school year.
By Michael A. Schwarz, USA TODAY
Will Thompson spots John DeGenova during a recent morning workout.
Thomas Hearn, president of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and former president of Wake Forest, was a member of the Presidents Commission in 1991. The idea behind time limits, he said, was to produce a more well-rounded student who was part of the overall student body.
The year-round devotion to a sport, Hearn said, is something that starts in high school and has become a "terrible" thing.
"What you need is a genuinely voluntary program," Hearn said of the summer strength and conditioning programs. "I'm sure there are people who do not want to be there and want to go on vacation with their families and want to do something else that will contribute to their growth and development."
But Georgia's Golston insisted he is chasing a dream and would be in a weight room somewhere if the Bulldogs training facility was padlocked. "When I was younger, I missed being home with my family in the summer, but right now this is my family."
Golston said the players gathered at the home of the offensive linemen for Game 6 of the NBA Finals. There were about 60 players, and they grilled steaks and hamburgers and watched the game on TV.
Golston said a crowd of players will also go bowling. "It's fun, but we're not very good," he said.
Georgia head coach Mark Richt insisted passionate players are doing what they want to fulfill a dream.
He also wonders what players would be doing with their free time if they were not working out.
"Would they be home playing video games all day? Vegging out on the couch?" Richt said. "We're not talking about an all-day workout here."
Georgia Tech's Henderson said he would be back home in New Orleans "getting in trouble."
California coach Jeff Tedford said his players are taking courses during the summer and can graduate early and move into graduate programs by the time they are starting their last season of eligibility. According to NCAA rules, if athletes are enrolled in summer school, they must take a minimum of six hours.
"They want to be together, they want to accomplish their goals, but it's not something they spend all day doing," Tedford said.
Besides taking classes, athletes hold part-time jobs. Shockley works the lunch hour during the week waiting tables at the restaurant at the university's conference center restaurant.
Part of the arms race
The voluntary summer camps for players seem as mandatory these days as the facilities arms race in college football. Keep up or fall behind is the mantra. If one school renovates its weight room, the next school renovates its weight room.
Georgia Tech's Henderson was told about the numbers of players at rival Georgia and said, "We're working just as hard as they are."
Hearn calls this relentlessness surrounding college athletics "unfortunate." He added that, without fear of reprisal, he could find players who would admit they do not want to participate in the voluntary workouts but feel pressured.
"The idea you need constant improvement to develop yourself and your team is a pretty standard idea," Hearn said. "The question is, is it voluntary?
"The difference between rules and the enforcement of rules is all the difference in the world. What coaches and athletic directors do with those rules is where the substance of the matter lies."
Steve Mallonee, a managing director for membership services in Division I, said complaints about the nature of the summer camps and whether athletes are forced to participate are rare.