In this episode, Connor Agnew sits down with Andrew Rafferty, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Clinton High School. Andrew shares his path from baseball coach to strength coach, revealing the challenges and victories along the way. With a strong emphasis on relationship-building—whether with athletes, administrators, or fellow coaches—Andrew explains how a community-centered mindset and positive communication can lead to long-term success in high school athletics. He also shares how social media can be a force for good when used to celebrate athlete achievements.
Key Takeaways
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Andrew transitioned from baseball to strength coaching after recognizing a better fit with athlete development.
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It took three years of persistence to secure a dedicated strength coach role at Clinton High.
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Success in high school strength & conditioning hinges on building relationships with administrators.
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Injury prevention and athlete engagement are central to Andrew’s programming.
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Coaches should put athlete development above personal ego.
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Collaboration and community among coaches help combat burnout.
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Social media can build morale and celebrate success when used thoughtfully.
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Treating administrators like real people opens doors for resources and support.
“Treat them like they’re just another person… then you can start working towards getting stuff that you might need.” — Andrew Rafferty
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Andrew Rafferty:
it’s always funny to me, I’ll look at teachers and
other people and how they talk to these people. They almost are nursed to treat them like they’re real people. It’s like, that’s my boss. I’m very blessed for my mother and her willingness to just talk to anyone anywhere. And so I learned that skill from her. And so I learned I’ll just go up and I’ll just start having conversation. Superintendent says to superintendent, go up, just talk to them. Ask them about how their day’s going. Talk to them, make a few jokes with them, have some fun. Treat them like they’re just a
another person because a lot of times when they’re in a school building, everybody’s trying to put on their best show for them. And it’s just like, it’s just a person. It’s like, just talk to them like a person, develop a relationship. And then you can start working towards getting stuff that you might need or like finding different ways to provide value.
Connor Agnew:
What’s going on, Samson Strength Coach Collective listeners? On today’s episode, we have Andrew Rafferty, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator for Clinton High School.
Andrew, thank you so much for coming on,
Andrew Rafferty:
Thanks for having me, excited to be here.
Connor Agnew:
Dude, I’m stoked. again, we have some listeners who watch on YouTube. We have some who listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever it may be. So for those who are listening and are not able to see the absolutely powerful mustache that Andrew has, I mean, it’s like Hulk Hogan has resurrected from his prime wrestling days and come back to be with us on the podcast. So that thing’s absolutely gnarly, man. I love it.
Andrew Rafferty:
Let’s go.
Connor Agnew:
All right, man. Well, let’s just break it down. Let’s start from the beginning. Can you tell me what got you interested in strength and conditioning? And then what’s your career steps have been and then what’s led you to Clinton High School?
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah, so like a lot of people grew up playing sports, mainly baseball, ended up going to college, played baseball, small little division three school here in Jackson, Mississippi, Millsaps College, played there for four years. We didn’t really have a strength and conditioning coach or anything like that. So was a lot of player ran stuff. So you can imagine how great that that went over and how hard we trained, but I always had a passion for it and always enjoyed it.
After graduating from college, ⁓ went into coaching and teaching. Wanted to find an itch to get competitive. So like my first real experience with full on weightlifting training was ⁓ the CrossFit gym. Started competing in that for a while, then branched off from there and got more into the strength conditioning side of things. ⁓ Started off at Clinton 10 years ago, was an assistant baseball coach here. ⁓ Really fell in love with training our athletes in the weight room.
Learned real quick that I had a better coaches. I better understanding of the weight room and programming that and getting more out of kids there than I did as much on the baseball field and Felt more my passion being in the weight room. So that led me to go back to get my masters in exercise science And from that point started pitching to our school district the need of a strength and conditioning coach That process took about three years Finally superintendent and our school board decided they’d get on board with it
So we created the position and I’ve been our strength and conditioning coordinator here at Clinton Public Schools for five years now going into my fifth year. So absolutely love, love getting to do what I do. I love the fact that I get to be with more athletes than just baseball. ⁓ Also get us kind of set a little bit more of my schedule, which my wife loves a lot because coaching baseball, ⁓ especially in the spring practice nights, getting home around nine o’clock. We had a game, especially on the road.
midnight or later and having young kids that always wasn’t the most fun. Didn’t really get to be around them as much. So this allows me be around my family a lot more and do what I really love.
Connor Agnew:
That’s awesome. And I love the stories of people who go out and are able to advocate for what they want. And I certainly want to touch on that in a second. The first question that comes to mind for me, though, is you said you had more of a coach’s eye for the weight room versus the field. And I think that’s something that lot of strength coaches can relate to. I think to myself, watching practice versus watching the weight room, right? I’m much better at identifying problems in the weight room versus when we see something on the court. And I remember literally yesterday, we have a guy on the side who’s injured.
He was riding the bike with me and he was like, well, I asked him if we duck in and we play straight up on this. And I was like, I have no clue you’re talking about, dude. And I didn’t even see the issue with what you’re saying. So when you first started exposing yourself to that process and started thinking in your mind, like, OK, strength and conditioning may be more for me. What were the indicators that you saw that said, I’ve got a better coach’s eye for the weight room than the field?
Andrew Rafferty:
I mean, just a level of comfort. I found myself coaching more when we were in the weight room, being able to identify like, this person’s movement pattern is a little funky. Then when we were on the field or hitting cages, like I’d get to it, but it always take me a second and actually be able to relate the knowledge I had to the athlete in such a way that they’d understand and be able to fix it or to improve on it. Like that was a little bit more of a struggle. So a lot of it was just like a comfort thing and me realizing, wow, I can have a
greater impact here and help developing athletic skills that they can then transfer into their sports specific skill. And so that’s kind of what that process looked for me. was just like, I want to make sure I’m doing what I can to help the kids the best I can. And so I feel like this was the area. And then just seeing some of the other training styles that were going on and that you can kind of see in some high school settings, I was like, we need a large scale of this. so having those conversations with admin,
where something took a little bit longer than I thought they would, but I’m glad and grateful for where we’re at now.
Connor Agnew:
the classic longer conversations than we thought with admin. It never stops. Which you’ve got to understand because there’s a process for everything. And I’m glad you lead me right into that because I’m really curious about that process. You had the idea, you bring it to your admin, and then like you said, it took three years. One, what was the way to be able to finally convince them that this is what we really need? And then two, how did you…
Andrew Rafferty:
Mm-hmm.
Connor Agnew:
kind of keep the hope alive for this position too. Cause I mean, I’ve been in similar experiences when you go three years without seeing something happen, you can start to feel like, right, it’s probably never going to happen at this
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah, so ⁓ a couple of things in our favor. I’m blessed to be in a single school school district. So Clinton is just Clinton Public Schools. We have one elementary that’s kindergarten first grade, one that’s second grade, third grade, one third, one or fourth, fifth, one sixth grade, one middle school, and then a ninth grade school and high school all feed into the same thing.
A lot of school districts around here, there’s three or four high schools in the same district. And so some red tape kind of when you create new positions, you kind of have to create one for all of them. So I was blessed in that scenario. And then also blessed that members of our school board, I had coached their kids. And I’ve always been really good at developing relationships with our athletes and our student athletes. so pouring into them led to me having a good relationship with them.
which allowed them to open up to more conversations and just constantly pushing for the fact like, hey, if we truly like at Clinton, like one of the models they have is excellence is the only option. So I just started using that back to Adam. said, if excellence really is the only option, we wouldn’t settle for not the best. So here’s a path to get us to the best and pitching that when you have a strength coach whose sole purpose is to…
get athletes in the weight room, speed development, conditioning, all that stuff. It allows the sport coach to focus more on the sport and it’s what they love. So you’re not getting some half tiered weight room experience because the sport coach doesn’t want to be in there or the season gets here. And also in the weight room gets on the back burner because the season’s here and everything you worked for is falling off the end. So just kind of pitching that and kind of using it as a way of like, this can cover ourselves in a lot of ways. If something bad were to happen that we have someone who’s certified.
in this position, it allows for everybody to be a little more on top. It allows us to have a science-backed approach and just really kind of finding different educational terms to throw at them and kind of speak in their language, not so much my language, so that they can understand the need for it. And so as we got going with that, you know, just constant conversations and just making certain like, hey, it’s still there, it’s still there. And then getting reports from them like, hey, this is our timeline we’re looking at. And…
You know, I found out like when they came to talk about me, the baseball coach we had, he had just left. We were getting a new coach in. And so there was kind of some like, am I still going to be coaching baseball here? Like, am I needing to look for another job? And our high school principal came down and, he was actually our athletic director at the time. He shows up one day at my school building, comes and talks to me and goes, Hey, is this something you still want to do? And I was like, yeah, of course. It’s like, all right, well, here’s how we’re going to do it.
Um, and so it started off on a little smaller scale. Um, and then it’s kind of grown consistently because what I’ve learned with a lot of my other high school strength coach friends, none of our situations are the same. Like there’s different, different things we have to do, different ways that we can incorporate our, classes and how we see athletes. But it has been even ever since green light got said for me to do this, it has been a process of getting more so that we kind of refine it and get it a little bit better. Um, like when we started off, I was.
teaching PE, how to teach a couple blocks of PE during the day, I’d see a few of our athletes during school and then a lot after school. And we’ve kind of been working more towards me seeing more athletes during the school day and a little less after school, which has helped out tremendously. Cause then when you get to season and baseball is one of the worst with this love our baseball team, love our staff there, but when baseball season’s here, they cannot, they don’t like sacrificing any field time for anything. And so.
Being able to pitch it like, if we have this, or I’ve seen them during the day, you don’t have to sacrifice any of your field time. You still get all your practices in. And so that’s been good conversations. The more value I provide, I found that ⁓ I get answered yes a lot more.
Connor Agnew:
No, I love that whole process. And the first, my easy question for you, Erma, this one may not be easy, but who was more excited on the day your position got approved, you or your wife?
Andrew Rafferty:
Me 100 % because she was
pumped. She was like, yes, ours are about to be a little bit better. now know I’m walking into our house at 515, 530 every day, just depending on how long it takes me to pick up after and grab my stuff. so that is, it might be year round that it’s 530, but it’s never a nine o’clock, 10 o’clock time. It’s five, unless there’s a sporting event, one of our kids games, one of the high school games I’m going to.
I’m home all the time and I gotta get a pick which games I go to. ⁓ I don’t get to go to as many as I’d like for all the teams. But one thing that I’ve found a lot of value and if it’s going to potentially be our last game for a particular team, I make certain I’m at it. And that way, like I’m just trying to show up for the athletes because that goes a long way with them and their buy-in and their trust of me and making certain that I have the best interest for them. so, know, wife loves it.
She really does love this new role, or what was a new role.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, no, I mean, I can only imagine being nothing but excited for that. ⁓ And it’s always exciting to see your significant other be able to do things that they’re passionate about as well, too, like you spoke about. That’s where your passions lie. One thing that I think you bring up that’s a very interesting point that I guess is a collegiate coach I never really thought of is, and I mean, that brings me back to my high school days where you have sport coaches running the lifts. And then, like you said, when it comes time for season, people are not going to want to sacrifice any amount of field time, core time, whatever it is, because
Andrew Rafferty:
Yep.
Connor Agnew:
there’s something that happened in the last game that they know for a fact that they need to work on. And so that’s an extra 30 minutes of practice and that cuts into lift right there. But it gets scary in those scenarios because now you’ve got athletes who know how to produce force well, they’ve been lifting all off season and then all of a they’re completely detrained. Like the risk for injury goes through the roof. And so I think you bring up a great point for the injury prevention piece and why the role matters so much is because ultimately you’re the one who knows how to make that time. And then you can even be flexible and say, okay,
Well, if I’ve only got 30 minutes today, these are the decisions I can make. These are the ways that I can go with it. We can still make sure we get that quality work in. I think that’s such an awesome point you bring up.
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah, exactly. And ⁓ I’m blessed too. Our soccer programs are probably two of our best that I get to work with when it comes time to training and putting an emphasis on it. Like they make certain in-season, out-season, at minimum we’re training twice a week. I usually get anywhere from in-season is probably closer to 45 minutes to an hour, out-season closer to 90 minutes with those two groups. And they absolutely love it. They get in here. They put an emphasis on it. It makes a world of a difference from my perspective when…
The coach is bought into it. It helps the athletes buy into it. And it’s always funny when summer gets here, it’s a big time for club sports, for our soccer. And we were very blessed with our soccer programs and how good of athletes we have there. And their club coaches always tell them like, well, we got regionals, our nationals coming up. You don’t need to be lifting weights or anything like that. And so they’ll come talk to me and they’ll be like, coach, he said that I shouldn’t be training. I’m like, well, what do you want to do? And they’re like.
Coach, we trained the day before the state championship game, out and won and kicked butt. I got to go, great, I’m training. I said, perfect, let’s go. And so just getting that mindset with them and having those small victories and just the importance that the support coach put on it and just makes my job so much easier when it comes to that.
Connor Agnew:
Well, the sport coach can either be your best friend or worst enemy. so to have somebody that has your back, makes a huge difference. the pie in piece is immediately easier when the head coach is bought in as well, too. What are some of the other benefits that you’ve seen? Like if you had to go back to the board and say, OK, this is what we’ve done in the past five years, and this is why this was a good hire, a good new position created, what are some of the other benefits you’ve seen from creating this position?
Andrew Rafferty:
Always.
⁓ So if we want to go, we can go with the injury prevention route. For our baseball, softball kids, we’ve had no arm injuries, major arm injuries, haven’t had really any misses. ⁓ For our soccer teams, we’ve had, see, in the past five years, our boys have played for three state titles, one, two. Our girls have played for four state titles, one, one. We’ve had two ACL injuries in that. ⁓
One of them kid played because high school soccer is played at different times of the year, depending on what state you’re in. So like for Mississippi, we play it during the winter. Other sports play it, other states play it during the fall. Some play it during the spring. It’s all different than the club season with some of the major tournaments. Sometimes they hit smack dab in the middle of our season. Well, we had a kid two years ago, one of our boys, we played two games for the school that weekend or that week.
And he turns around plays three games that weekend for his club team. And on that third game, he ends up tearing his ACL. And it’s like probably an overuse ⁓ issue there. I mean, easy point too, your body’s heavily fatigued. You’ve played over 240 minutes of soccer in less than seven days. so, but outside of those two, we’ve had very minimal injuries. think we’ve missed, I think this past season we only missed a combined.
three games out of our boys and girls soccer teams. So those are some of them. And then just general health and improvements in our teams and just some of that’s basic as that and just more community buy-in have been some of our big wins. mean, and then personally for me, one of my favorite things happened three years ago, no, two years ago now. ⁓
My daughters, I have three girls, ⁓ one’s six, one’s two, and I have an adopted daughter who’s 21 now, but my six-year-old, was two years ago, she started her, had her first soccer game. And some of these girls don’t know how much it meant to me, and they probably never will till they have kids. It was the day of our state championship game. Well, my daughter’s game was at 8 a.m. State championship wasn’t until 7 p.m. that night. It was about 30 degrees here in Mississippi, which is really cold for Mississippi. We don’t get that cold.
But the entire team, unbeknownst to me, showed up for her first soccer game and were there just cheering her on and seeing the impact that those girls have on my daughter and on my family. That makes this job just outside of the weight room, outside of seeing people do awesome stuff athletically. And that’s a moment I will never forget and I’ll always brag on them whenever I get a chance to talk about them for that.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, that’s incredible. That almost brings a tear to my eye just thinking about that. You know, mean, what an incredible story. Obviously, you have to have a really good relationship with your team to see scenarios like that play out. What are your key points for relationship development with your athletes? What are the main things that you focus on?
Andrew Rafferty:
We’ll be
So anything is making sure they know I care about them outside of just in the weight room. Thanks, sir. And I’m there to talk with them and kind of just help them in any way that I can and showing up for them. For a lot of people, especially what I’ve learned with our female athletes and me trying to relate to them, a lot of it comes down to do I show up to events that matter to them and showing up to their games ⁓ as much as I can. Like they see me on the sideline that that kind of puts a little little point.
dropping the bucket for them, trusting me a little bit more. like our girls soccer team, they know that I’ll drive their bus for them every time we go to a playoff game. So they’ll come and ask me, Coach, we’re going on the road, you driving? So was like, yeah, I’m going to drive you all. And like just spending time outside of the weight room, letting them know that it’s not just that the weight room is not the most important thing. I mean, I love it. I know it’s benefit, but for most people, they don’t enjoy coming in here.
If I can get them to see that it’s valuable and it can help them out, then that’s a big win. And so it’s just having conversations outside of it, not taking stuff too seriously. Like as a coach, like law strength coaches, they get painted as you gotta be as big raw guy, this big in your face. Yell, yell, yell, yell. And that’s just not me. Um, like, and if I try to be someone I’m not, I’m not gonna be as good of a coach. And so when we’re in the weight room, like before the session, like I’ll joke around with our kids.
I’ll cut jokes, talk with them, have fun. And then when they know it’s time to get to work, we get to work. it’s, some people might come in and think that it’s too laid back, but I think it’s perfect for our situation. I have the day that shows that we’re getting better. We’re getting faster, jumping higher, stronger. Results are getting better on the field. like seeing them that I’m not just some robot who just wants them to come in here, pick stuff up, put stuff down, jump and run. Like that, that goes a long way.
just kind of showing them that I have their best interests at heart. And that can be hard at times because all coaches, I feel like we have a degree of an ego. And something I constantly remind myself and other coaches that I talk with is that I’ve had my playing career, my athletic career is done. I got into coaching to help others. It’s a servant position. Like I feel like that term gets used way too frequently by people who don’t mean it. They’ll say, yeah, I’m a certain, no, you care about the wins and losses that are attached to your name.
It’s like, no, I don’t care. if this kid wants to be what everything they can, I’m going to do what I can to help them. I’ll see joy out of that. It’s not because it’s on my name. It’s because it’s what they want to do. Like I’ve already had my career done it, had a great time. Now I get to help others in whichever way possible I can. And so just being genuine with them like that, like that just goes such a long way for relationships.
Connor Agnew:
And so I think that’s a really good point you say, especially about the ego. When you see ego interfering with the coach’s career, with their athlete and relationship development, what are the things that you’re seeing? What are the indicators that ego might be kind of the enemy in that situation?
Andrew Rafferty:
I mean, you get a lot of like the language being used where it’s a lot of, talk like, like, I need you to do this or you’re not doing this for, and they start throwing me instead of us. And it’s just like those singular pronouns where it’s like kind of taken to them. It’s like, it’s like, it’s not, it’s not about you. It’s about, about the team. And like, if you really want your team, your kids to be about the team, you both starts, starts at the top and
You know, if you’re trying to make certain that you get this win because you did it and you’re trying to advance your career and other stuff, and that’s not a bad thing, but like you gotta be understanding. Like it’s not about you. It’s about the kid. It will always be about the kid, especially high school setting. Like, I don’t know. I think there’s a stat that’s going around 7 % of high school athletes go to play in college. So it’s like, what are we really preparing these kids for?
Okay, yeah, there’s some high level athletes that I work with that I know are going to the next level, whether it be Division 1, 2, JuCo, Division 3, I know they’re going to go play at the next level. So for those kids, am I preparing them for the next level? Awesome. Well, here’s a couple of guys and girls that I know after high school, like they want to be, they’re here because they want to be with their friends. They want to play, they love the game, but they’re not going anywhere else. Well, am I setting this person up to have a good, healthy life after high school and after sports are over?
Am I giving them something where they love to be fit, whatever it may be, whether it’s running, working at lifting weights, whatever it may be, do they have an appropriate healthy avenue to a life after sport?
Connor Agnew:
And how do you keep yourself grounded in that? Because I agree wholeheartedly. think those are the markers of a good coach. But it’s tough. I I think back to, especially in our area, you don’t win enough, you get fired. And so sometimes you kind of really keep that in the forefront of your mind. How do you push those thoughts back? How do you stay grounded and make sure that your ego isn’t getting in the way?
Andrew Rafferty:
Mm-hmm.
I mean a lot of it my faith ⁓ I find the more time I spend with with God and with Lord in prayer and in my Bible like that helps keep me grounded I mean I’ve always had one of my biggest struggles has always been humility and so like that’s something that’s always on the forefront and My wife does a wonderful job of letting me know that I need to check myself and so that’s always always a fun reminder, but but I find when I’m
When I drift further away from my faith, that’s when I really start to make stuff about me and I need to kind of recenter myself because it’s not about me. like having people like my wife or like some of my close friends, other guys that I’m close with who are in the strength profession, just those relationships really help keep it grounded. like, we’re for the kids, we’re not for ourselves. Yes, our livelihood.
providing for our family. It relies a lot on us being successful on fields, on courts, but is this what we’re called? Like is that the top of our calling?
Connor Agnew:
No, it’s great. It’s awesome because to me, was the first time I was speaking to you. You come across as an incredibly humble guy, right? So it just shows that you ⁓ being very successful when you try to work on your humility. So I appreciate that greatly. When you work with athletes and when there are the 93%, the people who are going to go on to the next level and a lot of those athletes are aware and know that they’re not going to go on to the next level.
What are the things that you do to help them develop buy-in? What are the things that you do to show that there’s value in the way you’re doing what they’re doing now?
Andrew Rafferty:
I think just constant. So I can’t remember who told me this, but a lot of times it’s really easy for us to be critical of athletes and constantly give negative cues and things like that, but always trying to put a two to one ratio at least of some two positives to negative and always trying to make sure that they feel that positivity. And so that’s not to say that we just let those 93 % do whatever they want in there. No, like they’re still a standard. They’re still a high standard and a high expectation for how you work.
But little ways that you can give them praise. That’s one of the things about social media now that that’s just so awesome. I’ll have kids do something that they find awesome and they’ll see if one of other coaches or myself is recorded. They’ll come up with, hey coach, you posting that later? Yeah, man, I’ll post it for you later, dude. Because that gives them that dopamine hit or something that gives them a feel good. I did something worthy enough. I’m doing good enough. I’m doing good.
Coach sees I’m doing good and so that keeps them wanting to pursue. Whereas if you just constantly are just on them and on them and on them and like talking like you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong. Well, then that’s going to have that native effect where they don’t even want to come in here for it’s just like a miserable time. And so then it makes the rest of the training worse for everyone else. So just finding little areas where you can speak positivity into their lives. And so just, just kind of checking in on them with that.
Connor Agnew:
I love that you bring up social media as a positive because I feel like nowadays everybody only kind of brings up the negative points about it, which you know, there are a lot of negatives to it as well. But I like you looking at the positive side of things too, because like I think back to when I was a high school athlete, if I had a coach posting a video of me doing something, I’d be geeked. I’d be so excited. I’d be amped up about it. So I like that you’re looking at the positive lens of social media. That’s awesome.
Andrew Rafferty:
Uh-huh.
Yeah, I mean, it’s too easy. like one of my biggest pet peeves is watching all these videos of coaches that see something bad, like, such and such high school did this or like such and such persons lifting like this. And they just crap on that person and like, this is bad training. This is bad training. This is bad. And like talking about it, it’s like, what did you do to offer help? Like besides just talking, talking bad about them, like, like, did you reach out to that coach? Like, Hey, I saw that y’all did this in your program. Like, Hey, I’m
a concerned about this and list the reasons why it’s concerning and then like, here are a few things or like I’d be willing to help out if you’d like some help. But instead it’s just like, oh, let me get some clicks. Let me get people looking at me like here’s this video of this kid who’s catching a clean in a starfish position about to rip both of their knees out completely. Let me talk bad about this person, this coach. No, like why don’t you be like, hey, reach out to him. If he’s bugged you that much, reach out to the coach.
and have a conversation. And that way you’re actually helping the athlete instead of just worrying about your own narrative and pushing your own agenda. And so like I try to turn that off as fast as possible. can’t, I can’t watch people talk bad about other coaches, regardless of if they’re right or wrong, unless they’re offering some type of help.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I can’t.
I can’t remember the specific stat but I remember reading a book. I can’t even remember the title of the book right now. I’ll put it in the show notes or something for people to see later. I remember specifically reading it was like negative media and media that scares you or media that calls out a problem. And like you said, without solutions is way more attention grabbing and it sticks with people way more. So like you said, if it’s a bad power claim and saying, well, these are how athletes get hurt, right?
or if an athlete ends up getting hurt, you know, like I know, think back to Odell Beckham Jr. and I saw a lot of people when he tours ACL in the Superbowl, like, no, no, no, no, no. If you were doing my training style, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Like the negative piece is just so crazy. I mean, I can’t believe it sometimes.
Andrew Rafferty:
Gosh.
Yeah, I love that. Like, hey, if he would have done this, he wouldn’t have snapped his Achilles or he wouldn’t have torn this. It’s like, no, no, he still probably would have. But like you might have reduced the likelihood maybe. But you can’t say that you’re going to prevent an Achilles tear, an ACL tear. Like sometimes it just happens. Sometimes you’re going to plant wrong, you’re going to turn. He could have done everything the correct way. But sometimes it’s just time. It’s kind like with pitchers and having Tommy John surgery tearing their UCL. It’s like
I’m a believer in each person has X amount of throws. That X is different depending on who you are. But when you reach that point, it’s going to tear. Now we can do stuff to lengthen how far away that point is, but eventually it’s going to happen if you throw long enough. it’s like, there’s no one size fits all. Like, if you do exactly this, because if you did, you’d be making a lot of money and everyone will be doing that.
Connor Agnew:
Exactly, you’d be a millionaire. I mean, you’d just be raking it in. ⁓ I love one of our former guests on the show, Missy Mitchell-McBeth. Like her rule is, can’t, you I will never post something like that’s a critique unless I actually provide feedback for how this could be better because that’s the only fair way to go about those things. And it’s like, I think people get lost a little bit in, like you said, the ego side of things. Now, obviously we’re looping it back into earlier pieces too, right?
Andrew Rafferty:
So, let’s see.
Yep.
Connor Agnew:
But they get lost in the ego side of things. It’s my way, it’s the correct way to do these things. It’s the only way to do it right. When it’s like, is all a giant brotherhood, sisterhood, know, all of us are working towards the same goal. All of us want to have athletes who are successful, healthy, we win. Those are the things we all want too. So why not actually reach out to each other and help each other?
Andrew Rafferty:
Right. Like, I mean, I feel like there’s too many people like worried about like, well, if I help this person out, they might come and take my job. Well, is that really what, what, what it’s about? Or if you just focus on doing the best job you can do, guess what? That’ll take care of itself. And you’re helping other people along because you didn’t get where you’re at by yourself. Like nothing we do in. Yeah. Like nothing we do in training is, is new. Like.
Connor Agnew:
I stole everything.
Andrew Rafferty:
It gets a new word put on it or some new flashy title. But I mean, the philosophies, the methodologies, they’ve all been there. It’s just how you put your own spin on it. And if you didn’t learn from somebody, I mean, you’re probably not doing a very good job. So it’s like, why are you trying to be so secretive and just like, here, help another coach. got a young guy, help him out. That way they don’t make the mistakes that you made when you were that age and hurting an athlete.
Connor Agnew:
Why don’t you want to see people succeed? Why don’t you want to see people do better and everybody have more enjoyment out of the process too. And like you said, if your calling is really to make sure that you can help as many athletes as possible, that’s one of the main ways to do it, Besides just the athletes you’re directly hands on with. One of the things I’m curious about, and again, as a collegiate guy, I don’t necessarily have the high school connections or kind of the high school, I would say rapport. I see a lot of high school coaches have with each other.
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah.
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
And one of the things that you mentioned too is that everybody’s high school situations are a little bit different. So they have to experience different things. Like I’ve got a whole world of Dexter College strength coaches I’ll call all the time, but it’s always about college problems. Like what are the main conversations that you feel like you have with other high school strength coaches? What are the main things you guys talk about and try to help each other out with?
Andrew Rafferty:
A ⁓ lot of it is, ⁓ you know, there’s a serious side of like dealing with coach, sport coach problems. Like, I feel like that’s true regardless of level. Like you’ll always have sport coaches that think that they know best or want certain styles of training being done even regardless of what it might do in the long run because that’s the way that they’ve always done it. ⁓
I’ve never been in the college setting in strength conditioning, so I wouldn’t know as much, but I feel like a lot of high school coaches, they tend to feel like they know more than they actually know because they played at a higher level and this is the training that they did. And so this is the training they want to see. And so that’s always a interesting hurdle to get over. And probably the hardest one to always get over is what is speed training?
actually having rest time in between sprints and like getting coaches to understand like, no, if we’re trying to develop speed, there needs to be X amount of rest time given however far we sprinted. And so getting that understood. then a of is like how we deal with certain admin problems. A couple of my buddies right now, they’re in the process of getting new facilities or redoing their facility and trying to get the right equipment in there.
A lot of times with school districts, it’s a lot of, bid stuff out, ⁓ projects out, and a lot of times it goes to the cheapest bidder and trying to get people to understand that, yes, this equipment package is less expensive, but it’s going to break in four years. Whereas if we go with one of these brands, it might be more upfront costs, but it’s going to last for 20 plus years. And so like, we’re going to come out on top.
It’s going to be safer. It’s going to be a better quality product. So just kind of working around things like that. then high school kids are funny. I because we’ll have, I mean, in any session you’ll have a kid that like, you’ll have a division one athlete right next to rack over a kid who can’t tie a shoe. And so some of the stories of just like, like humor stuff like that, that we go back and forth, but now I’m blessed to have a great group of about 15.
15 of us who in a group chat who just constantly messaging each other, whether it’s training ideas like, Hey, this worked in my setting. What works in your office? Some just is making fun of each other, just having some good rapport. But like, like that is something that, that I’m very grateful for.
Connor Agnew:
Well, trust me, the same problem exists in collegiate strength and conditioning where coaches think they know more than they do, myself included in that demographic as well. But what you speak about there too, the camaraderie piece, I feel like that’s what makes strength and conditioning so fun is like being able to talk through problems, but then also being able to share funny stories. I was cracking up with ⁓ another college strength coach this morning because we were just talking about a couple of things that happened with some of our guys recently as well too. And it’s just like, all right, this is somebody.
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
who’s highly specialized and they know the exact same thing I’m dealing with too. So it’s hilarious to them because they can actually picture it in their minds.
Andrew Rafferty:
yeah. And then one thing I’ve also like talking with some of those guys who did spend some time in colleges and stuff. Like one thing that’s a little bit different about high school is like you don’t see as big of a, the logos mean nothing. sure, I work at a seven a school in Mississippi. You work at a five a school in Tennessee, like or whatever classification, every kid’s like, my logo doesn’t mean anything to you. Your logo doesn’t mean anything to us. it’s like, it’s not like.
You have this like, well, you’re at a mid-major school and you’re at an SEC school. So like, I’m better than, it’s like, there’s none of that that really goes on. So that’s always a breath of fresh air. It’s just like, we all have the same problems, have the same kids. They just manifest different.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, that’s really nice because I’ll never forget going to a conference over the summer and I had a Tennessee shirt on because I was interning with Tennessee football at the time. And I went up and everybody was like, oh, you’re Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee. know, like, this is awesome. I want to talk to you and everything. And then I’m like, dude, I’m just an intern. Like, I literally have nothing to give you. I can’t get you tickets to the football games. I can’t do any of the fun stuff that you’re looking for right now. And then as soon as.
I threw on AppState, a lot of different conversations occur. It’s only the people that I know instead of random people coming up to me and talking to me. And you’re very correct on that. The logo fatigue can be very annoying sometimes as well in the collegiate sector.
Andrew Rafferty:
One of my buddies who’s a strength coach at school right off the road from me, he interned at Georgia and I think it was the CSCA. It was one of the conferences was at. said the first time he walked in just regular, no logo. Nobody talked to him. He said, next day he threw on that Georgia polo. said, like all the vendors coming up trying to talk to him. And he’s like, y’all ignored me an hour and a half ago. Like what’s going on?
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I was chopped liver yesterday and now I’m the prize cow. So it makes a big difference. ⁓ One thing that you mentioned earlier too that I thought was really interesting, and I bring up this question because of my own experience. When I was a young strength coach, I still am a young strength coach, right? But very early on in my career, a lot of my interactions with admin were very superficial. It was like, ⁓ hey, Kirby, nice to see you, right? Or how’s everything going? It’s awesome.
conversations about what we can do to improve the program, because I’m filling the role of either intern, part-time assistant, ⁓ assistant strength coach. And then as I’ve advanced in my career, a lot more conversations have had to go on with admin and a lot more things have had to happen where you actually kind of have to be able to display your opinions and you have to say the things that matter for your department. The thing that you said that interests me is, said you have to kind of speak their language. Can you dive in a little bit deeper on that, what that means for you?
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah. so one thing, ⁓ like kind of we’ve talked about already, like relationships are always going to, going to matter, especially in our positions where we have to be able to get things that we need for our athletes. And so the biggest thing, like talking with our superintendents of our school or our assistant superintendents or building level principles, it first starts with developing a relationship outside of the weight room. And so it’s always funny to me, I’ll look at teachers and
other people and how they talk to these people. They almost are nursed to treat them like they’re real people. It’s like, that’s my boss. I’m very blessed for my mother and her willingness to just talk to anyone anywhere. And so I learned that skill from her. And so I learned I’ll just go up and I’ll just start having conversation. Superintendent says to superintendent, go up, just talk to them. Ask them about how their day’s going. Talk to them, make a few jokes with them, have some fun. Treat them like they’re just a
another person because a lot of times when they’re in a school building, everybody’s trying to put on their best show for them. And it’s just like, it’s just a person. It’s like, just talk to them like a person, develop a relationship. And then you can start working towards getting stuff that you might need or like finding different ways to provide value. If I came in here every day to work and I just stayed in my weight room, stayed in my office, never saw anyone. Well, then it’s time for me to ask for something like, Hey, we need this for our athletes. Well, they’ve never seen me do anything.
They just know me as a strength coach. I mean, that’s an easy, easy thing to say no to, but finding ways up at the school building or around the community that I can help out with. And then when it comes time to ask for something, it’s a lot more likely to say yes. Like last summer, um, the building that I’m in, it was built in like 1988 or something. The flooring was old green, almost Astra turf. Like you’ll see in batting cage carpet.
They’ve been coming up and they finally were like, all right, well, we’re going to get new flooring. Cool. And well, it was the weekend before we went to our big high school coaches national conference. I was talking to our superintendent athletic directors like, Hey, I’ll go get some quotes. We’ll talk to people. Well, I’m on the road there and I get a phone call. Hey, we bought the flooring. All right. Cool. Awesome. All right. So sweet. We’re getting flooring. We got rubber flooring coming in. Great. Well, then about a month goes by and our athletic director says, Hey, the flooring comes in tomorrow. Okay.
Who’s putting it down? Just kind of looked at me. said, all right. So I started working that night on taking up the floor and I got on the phone, super grateful for relationships I have with former athletes. called them because my wife asked me, say, how are you going to get that taken up? I I don’t know. gonna call people. Call like 10 of my former guys who were in college who were home for the summer. They came up and I think took us probably 80 hours in total of us.
ripping flooring up and putting flooring down. Now we got really good at putting that flooring down come, come the last few, few little bits of it, but doing things like that, like just showing that like I’m willing to work. Like if I want something done, like I’m going to be willing to work for it. Not saying that that was the best strategy for us to do to have me install, but it’s there, it’s working. And now I know when I go ask for something like I’m going get it approved more times than not, because I find different, find ways to provide value. Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, because you show you care.
Andrew Rafferty:
I care. I’m
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Rafferty:
going to provide value in other ways outside of the weight room. That way, when it comes time, our soccer teams, they’re outfitted with Titan GPS sensors. I’m able to get VVT units in here, stuff that I knew I’d get told no for if I just didn’t do all the other stuff. So it’s like people ask me, like, why are you doing that? Well, I know that later I’m going to want something and I have to build some rapport to show that why I need something and so why it’s a good purchase.
or good investment.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, the process of delayed gratification, right? It just makes things easier in the long run for you. I really like what you say about just treating admin and superintendents as like normal human beings too. ⁓ I would say it’s not only like a normal relationship development piece. I feel like it gives you a leg up on everybody else too, because like you said, everybody else kind of gets like rigid. I think about them as like a two by four, like kind of just standing there like, my God, I’m talking to the AD right now. And they get nervous about this stuff. And I’ve been guilty of it myself a hundred times.
Andrew Rafferty:
It’s
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
But when you actually start to talk to these people like normal human beings, you check in on them, ask how their weekend was, how are your kids doing? I know your son plays baseball, whatever it may be, right? Ultimately, it just becomes way, way better relationship. And then they just don’t think you’re like some weird robot walking around with no emotions and just scared.
Andrew Rafferty:
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, mean, mean, we’re humans are built for relationship, whether you’re you’re a boss or you’re a low level employee. Like everybody wants to have a relationship with people. just like treat them like they’re a human and just talk to them and you’ll find out it’s a lot easier than what you’re expected. And so now you’re not nervous when they come up like, Oh, someone comes into my weight room. I’m working. Cool. I’m still working. It’s not like, or like, because I know some teachers like
Connor Agnew:
Cough
Andrew Rafferty:
They’ll be teaching a class, their principal walks in or superintendent walks in and all of they shut down and can’t teach anymore. like, what you doing? know, if you take the time to build that relationship, it’s just another person coming around.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, think about, know, people say what we put, we put our pant legs on at the same time or whatever it may be, whether they’re saying is I always think about this person got yelled at there by their mom, just like I got yelled at by my mom. So it’s all part of the same process. We all grew up the same way. So you’ve got an NWO shirt on. I’ve got to ask about this. Is this, is this, is this a new world order? Like, are we talking full wrestling NWO or is this a new addition that you’ve got?
Andrew Rafferty:
Yep.
This is something so to kind of go back to talking about my my group of friends, my high school strength coach friends. So about 15 of us in this big group chat, we talk all the time. ⁓ Started about three years ago with most of us and we’re from pretty much all over the southeast. ⁓ And you know, we just always communicate talk well. Last year at our big national conference. ⁓
At the end of it, there’s always a raffle or something and like 13 of us won something. like the one of the guys who’s on the board directors was getting very upset with the amount of fun we were having. Like we were just having a great time. Like we were laughing, having a good time. somebody at our table won, we’re cheering. Well then later on that year, we’re swapping stories and this kid, one of the coaches sends a picture of a detention one of his students got. And.
that apparently this kid got attention. They’re playing some game on the computer, project up on the screen. He had an intern name and the teacher’s name was Mr. Nelson. The kid wrote as his name, Nutsack Nelson. So we deemed our group Nutsack Nelson. so we had the, so getting ready for our, the national conference that just happened this past weekend in Memphis. One of the guys was like, I’m making us shirts.
I’m like, all right, cool. So he made all these shirts, because Lava’s are old 90s, 2000 wrestling fans. So he made these shirts. We all wore them the last day. And lo and behold, about 15 of the 16 of us there this year ended up winning a prize. And so just having a great, great time. So it was just something that just a fun little group that we get to act silly and swap some stories and also get a little bit better in the profession with.
Connor Agnew:
What an absolute stud of a student to be able to have the cojones to be able to do that.
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah, know. ⁓ to do that, we,
I think last year he graduated, went to college, and the guy who coached him told him about it. He’s like, he thought it was the coolest thing.
Connor Agnew:
I’m glad that he was able to get positive feedback on that post-graduation. That’s awesome. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on, man. Seriously, I really appreciate your time. I mean, it’s been awesome to get to know you, and I know our listeners have enjoyed it as well. Obviously, I was recommending your name, but then I was able to follow you on Instagram and see the content that you put out, which is awesome.
Andrew Rafferty:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
What is the Instagram username that you have so our listeners can follow you?
Andrew Rafferty:
Oh dear, let me make sure, cause this changed a couple of times. Give me one second.
Connor Agnew:
Hehehehe
Andrew Rafferty:
Okay it’s coach raff 25.
Connor Agnew:
And that’s RAFF, correct? Awesome. Awesome. Well, seriously, man, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on.
Andrew Rafferty:
RAFF25, yep.
Thanks, man. I’m glad I able to come on.
