The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Conditioning at Mentor open to all athletes
Cardinals athletes training together in summer months
Athletes from all sports are invited to take part in summer conditioning drills at Mentor. Training exercises include non-sport specific activities, including weight-lifting, pushing, pulling and more.
They say “a family that plays together, stays together.”
The Mentor athletic department might make a slight adjustment to that adage.
To the 200 or so studentathletes who are gathering every Tuesday and Thursday this summer to work out together at Jerome T. Osborne Stadium, the saying might be more like, “a family that trains together, stays together.”
Student-athletes from multiple sports are training together this summer.
It’s an idea that Mentor football coach Steve Trivisonno and his staff drummed up a few years ago that has taken off over the last few summers.
Not only are Trivisonno’s football players working out from 7:30 to 9 each Tuesday and Thursday morning, but girls soccer student-athletes are also taking part along with a smattering of volleyball players, track runners and baseball players.
The goal is an athletic department that is working out together and thus increasing a bond among the student athletes.
“I think it’s really good,” said Paige Floriea, who runs track and plays basketball at Mentor, after a workout session on June 27. “I think it brings us all together. We’re all like one sports team here instead of a bunch of separate sports teams.”
The workouts include various speed and strengthtraining regimens that are not sport-specific. Among the workouts in which the student-athletes take part are weight-lifting, sprints, cone-drills, tug-o-war, sledpushing and sled-pulling.
The group also goes through a rigorous stretching exercise before and after the workouts.
“We run our morning speed and agility drills, and we invited the other teams who want to come work out with us,” Trivisonno said. “We like to get other groups working out together. It lets the guys see how hard the girls work and lets the girls see how hard the guys work.
“It brings us all together.”
Throughout the school year, sporting events are held virtually every night of the week. In the fall alone, there are football games, boys soccer, girls soccer, volleyball and golf events.
At a school as big attendance-wise as Mentor, student-athletes could go an entire high school career without getting to know athletes in other sports.
With the blending of sports in this summer program brought to life by Trivisonno, not only are student-athletes getting in their summer work, but they are also meeting new people and creating a sense of togetherness.
Girls soccer coach Mandy Hart credits Trivisonno for bringing the student-athletes together, and said the results are impressive.
“It’s so awesome,” she said. “The kids enjoy it. It’s great seeing them work together to get better with the same goals in mind. All the different coaches coming together and working together, too. It’s pretty cool.”
There is probably no direct correlation between working out together in speed and strength drills, as far as wins and losses go.
The biggest plus is that the work is getting done, and the players are gaining a new-found respect for each others’ sports.
“I’m meeting new people, too,” said Alex Mullowney, one of three females who play football at Mentor. “I didn’t know a lot of them. Even though we’re not in the same sport, we can practice together and help each other out.”
In her fifth year coaching at Mentor, Hart has seen a difference in school spirit thanks to the summer drills.
“There’s that idea of being one school, one team where everyone roots for each other at each other’s games,” she said. “It carries over, what we started in the summer to when the season is in full swing.”
She said football players go to volleyball games and soccer games, and that the females go to football games on Friday nights not just because their team is playing, but because they worked out with those players in the offseason.
At the end of the fall season, Trivisonno said, all the student-athletes and coaches get together for a cookout and games to celebrate a season well-done.
A season that started way back in June and July with the blended summer workouts.
“It’s nice for everyone to get together, hang out and get to know each other,” said Trivisonno, encouraging interaction between the student-athletes from different sports. “In this day and age, everyone is fragmented around. I think it’s important we all realize where we are from and what we do - and that we do it together.”