Sunday, July 13, 2008
By Jerry Hill
Tribune-Herald assistant sports editor
In a weight room filled with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, it’s hard not to notice the changes.
Everywhere you look, bodies have obviously changed.
Linemen have slimmed down, replacing fat with muscle mass, while the skill position players have toned up and filled out.
> See Kaz Kazadi work with the Bears
But first-year Baylor strength and conditioning coach Kaz Kazadi calls that the byproduct, not the goal, of a demanding summer conditioning program that has just completed its sixth week. The grueling 2- to 2 1/2-hour sessions at 6:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. are preparing players for a football season instead of the next body-building contest.
“My whole philosophy is I train for performance,” said Kazadi, who headed up South Florida’s program last year when the Bulls were ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation after a 6-0 start that included wins over Auburn and West Virginia.
“You can walk by a kid and say, ‘He looks a lot better.’ Well, he does look good. But that’s secondary to us. It’s what they do and how they perform. It’s how consistent they are in the effort they put in and how long they can sustain that. The fact that a guy’s bicep is getting a little bigger is just a byproduct of your training, it’s not what we’re aiming for.”
And since it’s a performance-based program, the real tests begin 7 p.m. Aug. 28, when the Bears host Wake Forest in a nationally televised season opener at Floyd Casey Stadium.
“I’ve seen a lot of progress,” said senior offensive tackle Jason Smith. “But we’re not measuring ourselves from yesterday to today. We’re measuring ourselves for one common goal, and we’ve got 49 days left. That’s all we’re worried about.”
A countdown clock in the weight room is a constant reminder of how many days, hours and even seconds are left before the opening kickoff. As of today, it’s down to 46 days.
“You might remember from one day to the next,” Kazadi said. “But you forget about your weekends and you forget about your days off. And then you pass by (the clock), and 65 is 51 real quick. You turn around, and you’re like, ‘Wow!’ Now, it’s a little bit easier to train with intent.”
That’s been Kazadi’s approach for the last seven months since leaving his South Florida post to join head football coach Art Briles with a program that’s suffered through 12 consecutive losing seasons.
Even bigger than changing bodies, Kazadi and assistant strength coaches Chris Ruf, Adam Davis and Jeremy Weeks are trying to change minds and habits.
“If you’re not enjoying getting up for early-morning sessions and you’re not finding the joy in a heavy-lifting session,” Kazadi said, “or you’ve been training for three weeks and you can’t wait for the break, then you’re not training with intent.
“Everything is a process. But the trick during the process is to enjoy the work, to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Enjoy the sweat, enjoy the heat, enjoy the extra running, enjoy the lift. Once you get them to understand that all this pain is going to be worth it in the end, then I think that’s when the success begins.”
Want to be challenged
The funny thing is the players actually seem to enjoy the pain.
Even after running up the steps of the stadium, going through at least a half hour of stretching and running and another hour in the weight room, they leave smiling.
“It’s about time that we have something like this,” said senior center J.D. Walton. “(Kazadi) demands everything from us every day, and we give him everything every day.”
Every drill, everything they do, has to be perfect.
On Thursday, the players went through one warm-up drill on the field before Kazadi sent them back inside to start the whole thing all over again.
“He expects a lot,” said junior safety Jordan Lake, who was named to the preseason watch list for the Thorpe Award. “But at the same time, we’ve been waiting for someone to come in and really challenge us like that. No one wants to go 3-9 and not go to a bowl game every year. We’re ready for something.”
“It’s not so much in the exercise itself or the lift,” Kazadi said. “It’s in the detail of what you’re doing. They know that whatever the exercise they’re doing that day is not the issue. The issue is going to be the detail of how you do that exercise and how you carry yourself while you’re doing it.”
Strength builds esteem
Briles has always been a strong advocate of the strength and conditioning program. Before winning four state championships at Stephenville High School, he started a powerlifting program that began paying dividends in the first year.
“That’s how I’ve seen a lot of people survive in the game,” Briles said. “I saw the way it changed kids. I saw what it did to their attitude and how they felt about themselves. And I saw how it transferred from the weight room to the football field. With more strength came more confidence. And none of that’s changed.”
Kazadi’s philosophy is that it starts with good habits. If a player gets in the habit of doing everything the right way and expecting that of himself, it will carry over to the season.
“If he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, not just on the field but also off the field, he’ll be doing what he’s supposed to be doing on game day,” Kazadi said.
The job of the strength staff, he said, is to accentuate a player’s strengths and help him improve in the areas where he’s deficient.
Laying the foundation
“Championship habits and great habits are very uncomfortable to obtain,” Kazadi said. “So you need someone that’s going to push you in your best interest and expose little deficiencies. It’s exciting to see where these guys were. The transition is kind of like a builder laying the foundation. And like we told them, ‘The deeper we dig the ditch, the higher the building can go.’ ’’
Another aspect that’s emphasized is team building. In one of his patented motivational speeches, Kazadi emplores the players to support and encourage each other.
“I’ve seen you cheer more for LeBron James or Kobe Bryant than you do for your own teammate,” he told them. “You don’t even know LeBron James. But that guy’s going to be blocking for you.”
Starting in the spring, and even more so in the summer, the players have seen a difference.
“(Kazadi) and his staff have done a great job, I guess, of forcing that into us at first,” Lake said of the team concept. “Before, we might have had a few people going off in the wrong direction. But right now, from what we’ve seen, everybody’s focused and goal-oriented on getting into that bowl game.”
Accountability, Kazadi said, starts with Briles and feeds down to the players with the seniors and juniors serving as big brothers for the freshmen and sophomores.
“If you see somebody looking in the mirror, looking around for a coach, you get on them,” Walton said, “because they need to be worried about the weight and not what coach is watching them. The more coaches are watching them, the better things are going to happen. Better technique, more weight.”
At every station, there’s at least one coach watching. If he finds a flaw, he tries to correct it on the spot.
Even in the lifts, perfection is expected.
“If I agree with everything you’re doing, when I know you might not be doing it to the best of your ability, your opponent’s not going to do that,” Kazadi said. “So I’m going to try to find your weaknesses, no matter how innocuous they may be. And the only thing I ask of them is to battle back, no matter what. Keep battling, keep battling, keep battling.”
Mind over matter
The mental hurdles are sometimes more difficult than the physical pain, especially for a team like Baylor that’s languished in the Big 12 cellar for so long.
“About 2 percent of it is physical,” Smith said. “The rest of it is mental. Whatever your mind tells your body to do, it will do.”
Ultimately, like Briles, Kazadi will be judged on wins and losses.
If the team loses — or even worse, isn’t physically ready to play — Kazadi will blame himself.
“Kaz is working them hard, but we’re going to be fresh and we’re going to be anxious,” Briles said. “That’s a fine line that we have to walk. We’re going to make sure that they’re well-conditioned and their bodies are ready. But their minds are going to be ready, too.
“You’ve got to wake up and win every day. We’re going to have our guys physically and mentally ready to play the game of football. Then we’ve got to put it on the field and make it happen.”
For Kazadi, Aug. 28 can’t get here fast enough.
“I’m excited for these guys because of what we’ve put them through physically and mentally,” he said. “My passion and my pleasure is watching them work and seeing the fruits of their labor at the end.”
jhill@wacotrib.com
757-5715
