According to the Florida Times-Union, UNC football strength and conditioning coach Tom Myslinski will be leaving Chapel Hill to take a similar position with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Myslinski was with UNC for one season taking over for Jeff Connors who left for East Carolina after the 2010 season. He was also the only assistant coach from the Butch Davis era to be retained after Larry Fedora took over in December. The opportunity to jump to an NFL position is obviously too good to pass up so best wishes to Myslinski as he moves on.
Fedora will now need to hire a new strength and conditioning coach which is no small task. This is a position that is vastly underrated in terms of impact on team performance. The S&C coach is largely responsible for player regimen and ensuring the players are on track in terms of conditioning and development. Poor conditioning and insufficient strength training has definite on the field results not to mention makes players more susceptible to injury. This will be a hire worth watching, especially at this state of the year when most coaching positions are settled and everyone is focused on National Signing Day.
S&C coach is also important because he’s the only coach who’s allowed to oversee player training during the long offseason. Players may have more regular contact with the S&C coach than with the coaches actually responsible for coaching football. So he potentially has a big impact on player morale and attitude.
In addition, he’s the guy responsible for keeping tabs on who’s hanging around the weight room. Unfortunately, in Carolina’s case, that may be the most important consideration.
Jackie Manuel? No? I trust Fedora will find a good candidate.
i dont recall one moment of the season where i was impressed with the S of our S&C.
This is addition by subtraction. I’m sure Myslinski is well respected, but I noticed that our players often wore down and weren’t tough enough in the fourth quarter of games.
HTTE and H-Slax, that is something I noted in the GBU report frequently this season. I was not impressed with Mylo as S&C coach and was surprised Fedora retained him.
Strength and conditioning are vital in all high level sports now. Sadly, conditioning will strengthen ligaments and joints if applied properly.
With the 3 recent knee and a host of ankle injuries, maybe this is an area where there can be improvement on the basketball team as well.
The S&C coaching staff and their programs are increasingly important in every sport, especially where explosive movements are necessary. Which is every sport.