Recently the team partook in our yearly strength and speed which is a series of tests used at the NFL combine and what pro scouts look at in terms of stats off of the field for potential draft picks and free agent pick ups, of which I am neither. I am, however, part of the team so I was voluntarily required to participate. Our team has been working with a great staff headed by the very over qualified, Coach Carlisle. So after three months of hard, arduous work, it all came to a head with two weeks of testing. Here is how it went…
Pro Agility: (line up perpendicular to the 5 yard line, run 5 yards to the right, ten yards to the left and finally 5 yards through the original starting line) Sounds easy enough right? I turned in a time that Pre-Subway Jared would have been ashamed of. I knew my running tests were going to be the worst so I just made a joke about it, lied to some people and told them I didn’t care, and went on with my day.
3 Cone: (run 5 yards and touch with your right hand, turn around run 5 yards and touch with your right hand, run the same 5 yards you’ve already run twice and make a 90 degree turn and run 5 more yards, run around a cone as fast as possible, run back towards the 90 degree turn, make the turn and run the original 5 yards for the 4th time.) After my first two attempts I decided my clothes were obviously to blame and had to get the boot. Before I lined up for the 3rd attempt I shed my shirt and my shorts to run in only my compression shorts and to cut down on wind resistance. Wouldn’t you know it, I ran my fastest time. From that point on I knew that if I was going to perform, it was going to be without the unnecessary shirt and shorts weighing me down.
40: (run 40 yards) Let me preface by saying, if long snappers were supposed to be fast then I wouldn’t have made it this far. Honestly though, if we need me to run a fast 40 then we have bigger problems. This is how I look at it because it makes me feel better. But running a 40 is a weird thing, no matter how slow you run it, you feel fast. For those 5.3 seconds I might as well have been Bruce Jenner. You get tunnel vision, you cant hear anything, all you can focus is on is the finish line and how stupid you look wearing only compression shorts and the finish line being 10 yards away from the women’s soccer team practicing.
Broad Jump: (jump out as far as you can off of two feet) This one is confusing, you watch other people do it and think, “Hey that looks easy.” But then you get up to the line and its like, “Hey this isn’t easy.” The only time I would ever use this motion in a game is in a potential Easter-Themed touchdown dance in which case, we should practice it more often.
Vertical Jump: (jump as high as you can off of two feet) Pretty sure I didn’t even touch 10 feet. Stupid. Don’t need it. Moving on.
1 Rep Max Bench Press: I blacked out and was fortunate enough to, theoretically, press a large offensive lineman off of my chest. My roommates and I were able to press a combined 1,115 lbs (Dan Barry at an impressive 395, Spencer Dawson 375, which leaves me with benching something around one billion pounds); not bad for 3 walk-ons.
Hang Clean: The weight for a hang clean is measured in kilograms and if I learned anything in history class it is that the only people who use kilograms to measure weight are communists; ergo, if you did well you = a red. I’m sorry, that’s not me, that’s science.
Squat: After seeing our kicker Carson Wiggs do 405 lbs I knew I couldn’t get anything less. So I put 405 on the bar, squatted down, took about 30 seconds to stand up, racked the weight and called it a day.
225 Rep Max: The goal is simple; push 225 lbs off of your chest as many times as possible. Turns out, I can’t do it very many times (I did it more than 12 but less than 14 times) but I was super good at cheering on the rest of the team during their rep max tests. MVP probably.
Moral of the story, I didn’t need to test to know I was slow and weak, I could have just asked my mother. Or as Tommy Callahan put it, “I could get a good look at a t-bone by sticking my head up a butcher’s ass, but I’d rather take the bull’s word for it.”
Just short 33 days until Middle Tennessee! BTFU!
*other notable dates coming up
-145 days until Christmas -- www.isitchristmas.com
-337 days until 4th of July
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