Season in and season out, Gothenburg High School student athletes step onto the field of play with an increased level of speed and strength.
The improvement from one year to the next is, in part, the attitude and mentality of the athletes seeking improvement in their performance.
The other part is due to the summer weights program at Gothenburg High School, a program that was launched when Pat Novacek was the football coach.
“At that time, it was more run for the football team,” said strength and conditioning coach and teacher Seth Schaeffer.
Schaeffer has been a part of the summer weights program since 2018 and after six years of improving Swede athletes’ performance, is stepping down from the post.
He said that program has evolved over the years as more coaches and athletes were looking to reap the benefits of off-season workouts.
“Coach Justin Dowdy got it more organized to be run by one weights coach to creat a more unified voice and front,” he said. “The thought was we share a lot of athletes and it would be better to get them all under one umbrella.”
That idea took off in the summer of 2009 and by the time that Schaeffer stepped on the scene in 2018, his second year at GHS when he volunteered to help Dowdy.
“Coach Dowdy and I decided we needed to see a shift in creating a more direct program that trained our kids to be multi-sport athletes rather than just strong,” he said. “We needed to move more toward a plan that not only pushed the numbers in weights, speed, power but also eliminated non-contact injuries.”
Dowdy and Schaeffer got to work in the spring of 2019 to do just that by heading to clinics and seeking direction and reference points from a number of sources, including Boyd Eppley.
Eppley is the associate athletic director for athletic performance and facility development at the University of Nebraska.
During his 50-year tenure, Eppley molded the Husker Power strength and conditioning program, helping thousands of athletes achieve success while in Husker uniform.
Taking the tools they learned, Schaeffer and Dowdy put a new plan into place and saw results almost immediately.
“We still recognized it was something we would have to continue to evolve and grow,” Schaeffer said. “The strength and conditioning world is always evolving as our student athletes are. Yes, it comes down to strength, speed and power; the best way to get that out of every kid in a general setting has changed and will continue to do so.”
In the spring of 2020, Schaeffer took over at the helm of the program when Dowdy stepped away to pursue some personal goals.
“That first summer was a learning curve being in charge and having to meet the special demands of the summer that year,” Schaeffer said. “I learned a great deal that summer and it set the tone for what I needed to do to present the best opportunity for our kids to be successful for their teams.”
Schaeffer said the following school year he set out on a mission to find a more efficient software program to run the workouts so he could focus more on coaching the kids.
With 20-50 kids reporting for training at a time, it became imperative for him to find a way to ensure he was available to the athletes.
“I would have kids in the weight room, gym and outside by the shot area, I needed a way to know kids could keep on track with the work out and could freely move about these areas to coach up the kids,” he said.
He found rack performance, which allowed him to design the workouts and put into workout sessions in order to keep the room organized and the kids on task.
Schaeffer said he continued to go to more clinic to continue to provide student athletes the best foundation for their training.
Through those clinics, he found that college strength coaches and physical therapists were putting emphasis on strength and mobility.
“That second summer, that is what I emphasized,” he said. “The next seasons’ injuries decreased again but our quick twitch and speed wasn’t what I thought it could or should be.”
That made Schaeffer dive deeper in to research, heading back to clinics and seeking additional information through trainers like Tony Holler, Dan Fichtner, Cris Korfist, Tony Vilani, Mark Hoover, Gerry Defilippo and Cal Dietz.
“I realized we needed a program that first focused on strength with mobility, then speed, which creates power, and then incorporate neurology training within our training of plyometrics and isometrics - and it needed to happen in that order,” Schaeffer said.
In the summer of 2022, Schaeffer focused the Swede athletes on understanding strength and mobility and creating speed through that work.
Schaeffer also added some neurology concepts and the results spoke for themselves when injuries were down and agility and speed were up.
“I still didn’t feel like it was enough so I brought in Caleb Franklin from Quantum Athletics to really help our athletes work on getting faster while also teaching me how to better coach our athletes in the realm of speed and acceleration,” he said. “I knew and understood and formed our program what it is today to get our kids stronger and more mobile, but Coach Franklin truly helped our kids get to the next level with acceleration and speed.”
Schaeffer said he really feels like the summer of 2023 was the best summer yet for Swede athletes in the program, a truly fitting end to his time at the head of a program that has produced success for Swede sports across the seasons.
“In terms of strength with mobility, speed and the ability to produce the power needed to compete at high levels, I believe, is one of the reasons our fall sports had great success and why we will see success in our winter and spring sports,” Schaeffer said.
Gothenburg High School is seeking a summer strength and conditioning coach. If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Marc Mroczek at marc.mroczek@goswedes.org.