Simon finds new way to motivate

Once the school year comes to a close and the summer months begin, head coach Gary Andersen hands over the reigns of the football program to strength and conditioning coach Evan Simon.

“This is (coach Simon’s) team now in the off season,” Andersen said. “He gets those guys during these summer workouts he is definitely the guy who manages the team.”

The goal of the summer workouts are simple: keep the team battling and competing, while pushing each player to their absolute limit.

“They were rough, but they’re going to test you mentally and physically,” said junior outside linebacker Titus Failauga. “You just have to push through it. Not everyone can do this kind of thing.”

Not even Andersen was aware of what coach Simon had up his sleeve to get the player’s competitive juices flowing during the dog days of summer.

To challenge the team, Coach Simon busted out an authentic replica WWE Championship Belt--as worn by John Cena and Aaron Rodgers after he won Super Bowl XLV-- and passed it out after each workout to the player who who accepted the challenge of the day.

“You win the day,” Failauga said. "The person who works the hardest in that work out on that day will win the belt. One day we all worked hard and we were all given the belt.”

It wasn’t until someone sent a photo of the belt to Andersen, that he became aware what was happening on the practice field.

“That’s Coach Simon’s baby all the way and his staff,” Andersen said. “Making it competitive and having a winner of the day is something we're always talking about, and I thought it was pretty cool.”

Football is not a game that you can win alone. Simply pushing yourself to the max does not win you the title belt. It’s combination of making sure both the individual and their teammates are holding each other accountable and putting forth max effort.

The day that Failauga took home the belt, a large part of it was because he was keeping his teammates motivated.

“The day that I won it was a sprint day,” Failauga said. “Where you run 50 yards in seven seconds for 14 reps and three sets of that. I was just encouraging each person, and each time we ran a sprint I would count it, that’s how I won the belt.”

One day in particular was especially taxing on the players. Coach Simon had told the team that they were going to do ten half-gassers (down and back the width of the field) as well as 30 quarter-gassers (sideline to sideline).

The players had thought that they had completed the workout. Coach Simon had other plans. He decided to challenge the players to run nine more half-gassers and an additional quarter-gasser.

By the end of that workout the team had run the width of the football field (53 1/3 yard) 81 times, that comes out to roughly 4,317 yards of sprints (or running the length of a football field 36 times)

“That was probably the hardest day mentally,” Failauga said.”He had to push our bodies to the limit and we were at the end of the trainings...that was a deadly workout, but we pushed through it.”

At media day on Tuesday, Failauga said even though the workouts were grueling, he is proud of his teammates for stepping up.

“I’m glad that a lot of our players were able to meet the challenges that our coaches provided for us,” Failauga concluded.