By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor
HOBART – If you’re a high school strength/sports coach or an athletic director, there’s a good opportunity to receive some top-notch advice from some of the best experts in the field.
Taking place on Saturday, April 6, Synergy Sports Performance – located at 1200 Flightway Drive in Hobart – will be hosting its first annual Coaches Summit.
Registration will begin at 7:00 a.m., with the actual summit going from 8:00 to 5:00 p.m.
It was designed to bring in the brightest minds in strength, conditioning and performance for all sports coaches and athletic directors and will include both lecture and hands-on learning. In addition, lunch will be served and gift bags included for attendees.
“I’m really excited for this,” said Synergy owner Scotty Smith. “Since I’ve been in town, I’ve never heard of anyone bringing in something this beneficial for the youth in the area – especially with the level of the people we are bringing in, including two national strength coaches of the year. If you look back 10 years ago, strength training was nothing like it is today. At one point, people thought they could just do it, but when you bring in people that have degrees in the field, it shows that there is so much more out there.”
Smith pointed out that the summit is for all sports, not just football, and that it’s not about learning x’s and o’s and how to run plays – it goes much deeper than that.
“Youth sports are a little over specialized, especially when it comes to strength training,” Smith said. “Kids just have to get stronger in all areas. For example, there’s not a special way to do a weighted football lunge as compared to a volleyball lunge. It’s beneficial for all. The summit is geared to help coaches relate better to their athletes ‘outside of the game’ in the areas of strength, conditioning, nutrition and the mental aspect.”
Smith said things are moving forward at a good rate, with several schools already signed up and bringing their entire staff.
“We’ve sent out the information to any school we could think of,” he said. “We included the U.P. of Michigan, too, because in a lot of situations, they don’t get the opportunity to do these types of things. Over 2,600 invites were sent out, so realistically, I’m hoping for at least 100 to sign up. We realize that when you are trying to include all coaches in all sports, there is really no good time of the year to hold something like this that will satisfy everyone. In the beginning, I was a little more concerned about whether we could get quality people to travel to Green Bay, but that hasn’t been an issue. We have some outstanding individuals coming.”
You can log on to Synergyfields.com (under educational opportunities) to get the full bios of those attending, but some of the speakers include Brad Arnett (owner of NX Level Sports Performance) Jason Spray (2014 National Strength Coach of the Year), Tobias Jacoby (2018 National High School Strength Coach of the Year), Steve Brown (UW-Oshkosh), Jacob Sheeter (St. Norbert), HR Greer (Legacy High School in Texas), Korey Van Wyk (Northwestern College in Iowa) and Tyler Yearby (formerly of the University of Minnesota).
“I’m looking forward to getting people in here early and showing them around town, maybe getting them a tour of Lambeau,” added Smith. “We feel it’s very affordable, especially if a school brings their entire staff.
Before March 1, the cost is $75 per person or seven or more from the same staff (school) is $499. After March 1, the prices increase to $99/$599.