Devin Young, Senior Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Pittsburgh, did not take a straight path into the profession. He grew up chasing a hockey career through the junior ranks, walked on at Fitchburg State, and did not make the team. That setback pushed him into exercise science and a string of internships at UMass Lowell, Eastern Michigan, Princeton, St. Francis, and James Madison before he landed his first full time job at North Carolina A&T.
Young was the department’s director during COVID, running a football strength program with roughly 100 athletes, five platforms, a fraction of the normal equipment, and a single part time, uncertified assistant. He walks Connor Agnew through the daily problem solving that era demanded and how it shaped the coach and communicator he is today.
The conversation centers on what Young says has done more for his growth than any book: investing directly in mentors through site visits, cohorts, and phone calls, because a mentor can answer the follow up question a book cannot. He connects that philosophy to Pitt’s staff culture, weekly continuing education, and the summer internship program he now runs, where he is trying to give young coaches the same head start his own mentors gave him.
Key Takeaways
- Young’s fastest growth as a coach came from investing in mentors and site visits rather than books alone, calling it the difference between reading about a problem and actually getting it answered.
- Directing a strength program during COVID with no staff and constantly rotating athlete pods forced Young to build rapid problem solving and communication skills that still define how he coaches today.
- Pitt’s staff runs weekly continuing education and full peer reviewed program audits, using force plate data and KPIs to catch blind spots without turning it into a competition.
- Posting workouts and running a handwritten whiteboard series forces him to be certain of what he is teaching before it goes public, sharpening his own knowledge in the process.
- Pitt’s summer internship runs on daily meetings, a full 15 week programming project, guest round tables with outside coaches, and live coaching drills that get progressively harder, built to give interns the same mentorship head start he got.
Quote
“I’m a big believer in finding people who are doing what you believe in and reaching out to them. Go intern for them. That’s the best way to learn, because now you’re hands-on, learning and doing at the same time.”
Guest: Devin Young, Senior Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, University of Pittsburgh
Connect with Devin Young
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devin_sc_coach/
- Versatile Training Academy, Devin’s side company (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/vta_sports_performance_/ | linktr.ee/VTAcademy
- University of Pittsburgh Strength & Conditioning (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/pitt_sportsperformance/
- Devin’s staff bio, Pitt Athletics: https://pittsburghpanthers.com/staff-directory/devin-young/3836
- Talkin’ Pitt Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts
Connor (01:29)
What’s going on? Samson Strength Coach Collective Listeners. On today’s episode, we have Senior Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at Pitt, Devin Young. Devin, thank you so much for coming on, man.
Devin Young (01:40)
No, I appreciate you having me on. I’m glad you grabbed me at CSCCA and asked me if I’d wanna be on and all. It’s always it’s fun, but it’s also always weird when I’m on the other side of a podcast not hosting it. So I’m I’ll try my best not to take over and start asking you a bunch of questions.
Connor (01:53)
Yeah. I you know what, honestly, when I’ve since I’ve started hosting the podcast and I’ve been a guest on other podcasts, it’s like almost like this sense of relief a little bit. I don’t know if you feel the same because you kind of just get to answer the questions, you know, where you don’t have to drive it as much or drive the conversation. Even though every conversation I have is awesome and I love it, you know, like it’s still it’s nice to kind of be on the other side a little bit. So I appreciate you letting me ask the questions this time.
Devin Young (01:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
No, yeah. And it’s also cool to see how other people like host their stuff. And I’m always interested on who’s doing it better, who’s got better ideas or questions, or at least keeps the conversation going more free flow. Cause I hate the ask a question, answer the question, ask a question. I’m like, no, like let’s just talk.
Connor (02:27)
Yeah.
That’s exactly. And that’s the vibe we’re going for. So I I hope I can live up to that for you. so I’m excited. But yes, I’m certainly glad I pulled you side at CSCCA too. You know, we first actually got introduced via a former podcast guest, Nico Scheringer. I know he worked with you over at Pitt, and then what’s that’s what allowed me to kind of get introduced to your social media. and so then I saw you at C S C C A and I was like, We’ve got to get you on. So look, this has finally come to fruition about two exactly two months later at this point.
Devin Young (02:35)
Ha ha.
That’s wild it was been that long since CSC. I feel like we just got back from Texas and I’m thinking summer’s still ahead of us and it’s almost over.
Connor (03:00)
Yeah.
my goodness. It’s already over for me. We got all our teams back on
campus, full swing going. So but it’s good. It’s good. That’s what we came here to do. but okay, can you just take me through your background, kinda just give me an introduction to yourself and then what you’re currently doing at Pitt.
Devin Young (03:12)
Mm-hmm.
All right, so I guess I guess we talked about this earlier offline. I sometimes think I’m just a guy, but got into strength and conditioning almost a decade ago. went to Fitchburg State University, tried to walk on to their NCAA D three hockey team there. Pl hockey was my entire life and existence from kindergarten through juniors. I did the junior route. If you guys don’t know anything about hockey, there’s basically once you turn fifteen, you can start playing juniors and you can play that to your twenty one, depending on when your birth year falls.
Connor (03:26)
Yeah.
Devin Young (03:50)
And for the most of the time for NCAA, we’ll see how this new five for five changes college hockey. Most of the time you come in as a freshman at 21. You’re able to play juniors, develop stronger, more IQ on the ice, whatever that might be. So did that whole route, tried to get to play NCAA D three. If you don’t know hockey again, there’s either Division One, your Wisconsin’s, your Minnesotas, or then you have NCAA D three, and then you have club hockey. So really not a lot of opportunity.
If you do want to play. And my thing was always trying to play at the highest level I could. I learned early on I’d never play at Vermont, which was my dream school, but we tried for the next best thing. Got there, didn’t end up making the team, and kind of just went through the motions for a couple of years, dove into the exercise science rabbit hole and fell in love with it. I had a buddy of mine, he was two years older than me, interned with Devin McConnelly at UMass Lowell, and loved the experience. Raved about it, reached out to him.
Yeah, whenever you get ready for your internship, let me know. We’ll bring you on board. And just happened to be working at a vitamin shop and Keith Vinci came through one day with the UMass Lowell sports performance shirt on, said what’s up. I’ve talked to Devin. I want to intern. He gave me his business card. And the next semester I was up there interning. That’s kind of really where I got my first start. And I couldn’t have asked for a better place to be. Keith, rest in peace, man, like was a great boss, a great mentor. it’s kind of crazy every
part along my career. He’s always kind of been like backseat driving it a little bit, even though I didn’t know about it. But they helped me out. AJ Whitehead, who’s women’s basketball at Wisconsin, was there at the time. Rick Melumdrum, who I think is now opened a private facility somewhere. He’s bounced around college a little bit, took step away, come back. but yeah, they put me under their wings, helped me get my CSCCA, CSCS, all that stuff, and then bounced around a bunch of other internships, Eastern Michigan, Princeton,
Did my GA up here at St. Francis, which is about like an hour and a half east of Pittsburgh, and then did another internship of James Madison University. And after that summer internship, landed my first full time job at North Carolina AT. So it’s been a roller coaster as all strength coaches like all over the place at the time when I started this profession, also met my girlfriend now wife. So the whole goal was trying to get closer to be around her versus just kind of floating all over the country.
Was down at North Carolina AT for four years, was the director during COVID, was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever been a part of in my career of trying to lead a department with only 10 people in a room and heat checks and all the stuff we had to go through back then. Left there, moved in with my wife. She was working at James Madison University, ended up at Bridgewater College as an assistant director for three months and then a director for a year. And actually was supposed to not supposed to, that sounds weird.
Was very close with Christian Carter at James Madison University. His baseball softball job opened up. He asked me to interview, went through the whole process, was a finalist. They ended up going with someone else who, oddly enough, me and him GA’d together at St. Francis. So there’s a big connection there. And then Pitt happened to have a job open. And I always loved what Coach Mock and Aaron posted about from their time at Mississippi State, very forward thinking, very gross mindset.
And I was like, God, everything’s up to date. My resume looks amazing. The cover letter, I just need to change the school name. It’s perfect. Send it in and I’ll never hear from them. And about like a month and a half later, I get a random call, walk in my dog from a Louisiana number, and it was Aaron Duval, and got here almost four years ago now. I think I’m going on my fourth or fifth year. God, time flies. I really can’t remember. And have been here ever since. Oversee tracking field, softball.
host the Talking Pit podcast here. I’ve had a role in the past of really doing a lot with our social media here. That role has kind of changed a little bit based on moving pieces around. But honestly, man, just I’m loving Pittsburgh. Me and my wife love it here, man. I will die on the hill saying we have one the best staffs, excuse me, in the country. And I absolutely just love it here.
Connor (07:47)
That’s awesome, man. And and I’d love to hear about your experiences. I’m definitely unfortunately gonna bring back the traumatizing COVID experience in a little bit, but I’m curious my apologies. but I’m curious at first, like, you know, you said after going to college, you kind of dove into the exercise science full swing. And that’s where you really fell in love with it. When you were coming up through juniors, when you were a hockey player, were you lifting a bunch, or was it, you know, kind of just hockey’s the main focus and lifting was kind of an added bonus?
Devin Young (07:55)
Yeah, please do. Yeah.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
So during my time, like stretching hockey, like your normal stretching was you got on the ice and you did like a six point stretch, you put your leg on the bench, hit your hamstring for a couple seconds. The weight room was here and miss. I mean, I was your typical fourteen, fifteen year old in high school, would hang out with my buddies at Plane of Fitness, and we’d one rep max bench, one rep max leg press, and throw some curls in and call it a day. It wasn’t till my last year of juniors I ended up training at a private place called MVP Space.
Connor (08:25)
Mm-hmm.
Devin Young (08:42)
Sports trainer, MVP Sports Center. I don’t remember the name. And it was the first time I was exposed to like, wait, you get paid to train people. So like that thought was in the back of my mind of like, okay, this seems like a cool job. but again, my whole thing for going to college was to play hockey and I would get a degree in something and then figure my life out whenever that time ended. There was maybe some crazy thoughts of going overseas and playing. there’s a cool Irish league that I’ve always like, dude, that’d be dope to live in Ireland and play hockey and whatever. But again
Just didn’t have the skill to make a say the NCAA team. And then from making that, trying to go play professional even anywhere in the world is just slim the nun. But yeah, it just kind of fell in the back of my mind. It seemed like something I was interested in and again was one of the best decisions I think I’ve ever made in my life.
Connor (09:32)
Well, I’m I’m stoked to hear that it worked out for you, obviously. I love that you bring up Ireland. My dad and I went on a a week long trip to Ireland, absolutely loved it, had a fantastic time, you know, and so much so that when I came back and I saw my wife, I was like, Look, if anybody actually lifted over in Ireland, we’d move there today and we’d start up a training facility. But, you know, obviously in America there’s just a much different lifting culture, there’s much different training culture and
Devin Young (09:41)
Okay.
Connor (09:57)
I remember going over to Ireland and like people were looking at me because I’m, you know, six feet tall, two seventy, and people were like, Who the hell is this guy? you know. And so I remember I I saw one gym while I was over there. and it was a half jujitsu, half powerlifting gym with two racks. And that was like the main area that I saw. And I was like, All right, if I come over here and I try to start a you know, strength and conditioning facility in Kilkenny, I think I’m gonna have a little bit of troubles.
Devin Young (10:04)
Yeah.
Yeah. One of our interns actually this year is from Ireland. So she’s she’s been amazed at like again, like the differences, how they train within I think she she plays hurling, so she’s got her foot in the hurling door and a little bit in rugby, I think, over there. But again, it’s just so cool for her to just talk about Ireland and that whole area. And I think in the same way, like if I could open a space and actually make a living, I would probably can like, Nate, Alyssa, you wanna go move to Ireland? And she’d probably actually be down.
Connor (10:24)
Really?
Yeah, it would’ve be fantastic. Have you have you watched Hurling? Have you ever seen it live?
Devin Young (10:51)
So after she explained it to me, me and Taylor Gossman got on our phones on YouTube and I just started pulling up hurling videos. So we’ve been addicted to it. And she actually found a Gaelic club over here. So she plays. They practice two or three times a week and then she go plays. So we’re trying to find time the summer where it’s local. Cause again, she’ll be like mid Ohio. Like they travel, I guess, because again, how many hurling teams are there in here? But she’ll bring her sticking because she’ll use our indoor facility to practice. And next thing you know, we’re in the office with a tennis ball just
Connor (11:14)
Yeah.
Devin Young (11:20)
trying to be hurlers and just having a good time. But no, I’m I’m obsessed with it. I think it’s a cool sport. It’s like lacrosse, rugby, somehow baseball gets into the mix. It it’s absolutely awesome. It’s so cool to watch.
Connor (11:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, I only bring it up because I agree with you. Well so my dad and I on that trip went to go see a hurling match. And it was just so interesting to me. I was like, if I was the strength coach for this team, like how would I train them? Because like you said, it’s it’s a mix of so many different sports that we know. and obviously conditioning is a huge aspect of it. There’s a lot of contact, and so there’s has to be a muscle mass aspect too, you know. So like I just my mind was just going with no padding. I mean, seriously.
Devin Young (11:50)
With no padding, by the way. So like you you
have to you have to have some muscle on you to take those hits.
Connor (11:56)
Yeah. And the best part was is like these guys are just like accountants. Like they do it, they’re it’s they’re completely amateur. You know, there’s like a thirty five year old guy going against a twenty one year old just getting absolutely drilled. Then he gets right back up and drills him, you know. So I thought it was fantastic. I I highly support it. And it sounds like we’re starting a partnership here. So w eventually one day we’ll both move to Ireland and we’ll start up our strength and conditioning facility together.
Devin Young (12:05)
Mm-hmm.
We’ll figure it out. I’ll keep contacts with Alex and make sure that we have a connect on the other side of the ocean and I’ll have to make sure we got an easy way in.
Connor (12:26)
Perfect. That’s all that’s all I’m asking for.
So I appreciate it. Well, okay, I did allude to this earlier, but I do have to ask you, you know, I think a lot of our listeners are are a little bit of the younger listeners, where they don’t necessarily they didn’t necessarily have to be in the strength and conditioning space during COVID. on top of that, you were in a director role, which obviously a lot of the rules and regulations and the administrative piece comes down to you. Can you just walk me through that experience having to handle COVID?
I mean, what were the issues that you faced? What were some of the solutions that you came up with as well?
Devin Young (12:56)
I mean, learn by fire, right? I feel like every day I was walking into a burning building and it was just like, okay, how do we still function? How do we get training done? I mean, the best example was like we had a football team. I think the roster was like 107, 105. We trained Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I think we might have started, we’ll say five thirty, plus or minus half an hour, whichever way you want to go. Ten kids per room, temperature checks before they came in. I think it was like weekly or bi weekly
COVID testing at that time. And it was me and a part-time uncertified assistant. So trying to figure out like, I don’t even care about programming X’s and O’s and all that. Like trying to keep football dudes a like, all right, keep your mask up. Coach, I can’t breathe. All right, pull your mask. Like, you what I’m saying? Like you’re trying to follow these guidelines and rules because you’re th ’cause that’s where we’re told is like how we’re gonna keep us safe, keep us moving in the right direction. So whenever a season dump does come, we’re as prepared as we can to be. But like
I only had X amount of dumbbells. So now like the weight room was like rack, rack, elevated platform in the center, right? And we only had five elevated platforms. And there was no way they were six feet or whatever it was apart. So Olympic lifting was out of the question. Basically, each kid had their own squat rack and then we divvied up the dumbbells. We’re like, all right, we’ll try to put maybe like smaller kids down here, the kids that are really strong, we’ll move them to this side because it was like the 105s, and then, well, this kid needs a 105, or this kid got moved, or
It just it was it was one of the best things for me, I think, to be a director at that time because I learned how to problem solve so well. I learned how to handle a budget when there was no money. And again, the school I was at, we weren’t flush in money to begin with. But again, now like ordering simple things. Hey, I need bands, I need hurdles, just the little small things, our nutrition station. How are we gonna keep feeding these athletes? Right. Because again, even if we’re working out or if they’re not working out,
Sleep fee fueling them is going to be the best way for them to recover or even just keep going about their normal days. So there were just so many things that popped up of like, okay, so and so got sick. Now he’s out of this group. This group is now moved to a different group. Well, this kid was over this kid’s house and this kid tested. So now this whole pod is out. Okay, this whole pod’s out for two weeks. What happens when they come back to two weeks and we’re on week six of training and now they’ve had two weeks of nothing? How do you
Bring them back in. Do you put them in a transition period? Do you put them back on week one? Well, now you put them back on week one for two days and half the group was in contact with someone else. And now they’re for you what saying? It was just like you were trying to do the best training you could, but in the worst situation you could because you didn’t know who was going to be out, who was going to be in, what pod was going to be shut down, for how long. And then this whole big glooming thing of talking with the sports coaches, again, I’m the director, I’m looking over football.
Hey, are we going to be prepared to play if it comes to be here? And in my heart, I’m like, no, we’re not going to be prepared to play. Like, we’ve got kids. I I think there was like two kids, like, I think they missed like eight weeks of summer training. Cause as soon as they got cleared, they then hung out with someone else who got positive and then they were out again. So it was like, how how can we even train these kids? But again, trying to put a looking at the glass half.
Connor (15:56)
Mm-hmm.
Devin Young (16:19)
Full instead of half empty, man. As a director, man, again, problem solving, communicating, learning how to coach. I mean, we had twelve hours of football. So now you’re running the same program over and over and over, maybe with small variations. You just got really good at coaching, verbally coaching, because again, I didn’t want to be super close to the kids. It was early on. I didn’t know what was going to happen to you if you caught it, didn’t caught it. And somehow I made it through the entire first two years of never catching it. So
Don’t know how I manage that one at at all. But no, just like a lot of a lot of good came out of it looking at it back now of like how I coach, how I communicate, how I problem solve. But again, I it was just a crazy time, especially trying to be thrown in a leadership role when I didn’t have a staff at the time. I think when I got hired that we had like five people at AT. That was our staff. And it was just one after another, took a job, left, quit, and it was just me and a part time who was uncertified that I couldn’t even leave. All right, you’re gonna coach the
Connor (16:47)
Impressive. Yeah.
Devin Young (17:14)
tennis team, I’m gonna get out of here an hour early. It like, No, I have to still be in the building legally for you to coach them. So just interesting. Really learned how to survive on little food, little sleep, a lot of caffeine, like
Connor (17:18)
Yes, yeah, yeah. Wow.
Well, you know
Devin Young (17:27)
Really proved who
I was and how much did I really love this profession.
Connor (17:30)
Yeah, e you know, I I ’cause I think back to my time of handling COVID. I was finishing up my part time role at Tennessee. just got my master’s degree. and then, you know, for me, like the f the challenge that I had to come up with and one of the nice, you know, again, the glass half full aspect is how do you train entire teams when they can’t even come in the facility? You know, ’cause that was how it initially started. and so they can’t come in the facility whatsoever. So now I’ve got a full, I mean
Devin Young (17:49)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (17:56)
Rolodex of different bodyweight workouts and different things that people can do at home. So now it’s really nice that I can keep that. but then I started my first full-time job at Texas Tech. And so this is the first time I’m running a room, you know, legitimately with a full-time team that, you know, I’m really I’m getting paid a full-time salary and benefits to be there. you know, and it’s figuring out, okay, one, how do I develop a culture? Because I don’t even know how to do that as a strength coach quite yet.
and then two, how do I make sure we follow all these guidelines? Like you talk about bringing the dumbbells out to the racks. I remember doing that every single time. I remember again, somebody touched this dumbbell. Now what do we you know, we gotta fully sanitize it before somebody else touches it. Like it was a real pain. But again, I agree with you. Like it really taught me, like you said, how to problem solve. It really helped me figure out what are the things that I need to do in order to make sure we execute it according to these standards. And then once those
Devin Young (18:37)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (18:44)
you know, restrictions or everything were lifted, it was way easier for me. So I th I was really happy that I could have it for my kind of first time full time role. obviously, you know, if I could go back and make that choice again, I probably would go with the easier route, right? But at the end of the day, it did make me a better coach in the long run.
Devin Young (18:47)
yeah.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I wish it never happened, but here we are and hopefully hopefully we’re better for it. We’re better coaches, we’re better men, we’re we’re just gonna thrive through and if something ever pops up again in our lifetime, it’s like, nah, we’ve done it before, let’s just do it again. Yep.
Connor (19:04)
Here we are. Yeah.
Yeah, we’ll have a leg up, you know, on the younger
coaches. We’ll have known how it goes. So, we you know, one of the things you mentioned in your intro too was that you believe that you have one of the best staffs in the country. and, you know, truly I remember, you know, what Coach Mock and and Coach Duval have been posting, like you said, separately in Mississippi State, what they’ve done at Pittsburgh. I think it’s been really interesting to see the high quality content that they’ve posted. but I’m just curious to you.
Devin Young (19:23)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (19:40)
What is the defining factors for you? What makes this one of the best staffs in the country? Cause I agree with it, but I’m just curious to see from an insider, you know, what your perspective is.
Devin Young (19:50)
I can talk about how we are all specialists in different areas, especially now with bringing on Connor. I mean, the return to play aspect of our staff is going to go through the roof. My continuous knowledge for continuo education, I feel like there’s not a single person in our office who’s not like reading a book on a course and all that. Brennan with conditioning, GPS stuff, Taylor with his like we all have like we’re all great strength coaches, and then we all have our little pockets of more expertise and all that. That’s great.
Coach Mock and Coach Duvall, I’m gonna at tie him in because now he’s leading the forefront, right? He’s keeping this ship going, did such an amazing job of the people they hired. When I tell interns, fellows, all the time when we do interviews, right? Like they ask, like, what separates you guys or what makes this a great spot? And I hate saying it because it’s so cliche if you think about it in the business world and this and that. When I say like we are family, we are family.
Any one of these people can call me at any time of the day or night with an issue or problem. I’ll we’ll any of us will be the first one to respond. We have fun in the office, right? Like we’ll come in. I’ll come in six, seven in the morning sometimes. And I mean, I was in today at eight. First thing I had to use was ten o’clock, and I don’t have any teams today. But I came in because like it’s a fun environment, right? Whether we’re joking around, we’re playing table tennis on the plyo boxes, right? We got a impromptu basketball game because basketball camps got to
camp going on and they leave for 12 at lunch. So now we’re shooting hoops and all that. You know what I’m saying? Like it’s a it’s a hardworking staff really dedicated to trying to push the profession forward. But God, do we have a great time doing it? And I think that’s the thing that separates us. And it also helps that I’m currently in our new office space of a new weight room we’re moving in, which I think is one of the my least favorite parts about this new room because it’s going to be me and Taylor sitting next to each other. Right now we are all in one big rectangular. Plus side
We’re super close. You can turn around, talk to someone. We can have fun. Downside, most of us never get any work done because we’re someone’s someone’s free grabbing one of the Nerf guns or doing something else, like, like, yo, let’s go shoot hoops. Let’s go in the wrestling room and toss the f like what I’m saying. But like i I think the environment of our old weight room, the staff that Steph and Aaron has built going forward, it’s really the people that they’ve put together that I think Mike Boyle says it all the time. I can make you smarter. I can’t make you a better person.
And we have amazing poop people through and through.
Connor (22:18)
Yeah, you know, like you said, it it can be a cliche for people to say that, right? And it almost feels like you have to say it at this point because everybody says it during interviews, right? if we’re interviewing for a role and somebody asks me, you know, what makes Boone special, a lot of people will say the people, we’re all a family and different things like that. And, you know, I think it it truly makes a difference when that’s the actual case, right? Like when it’s somewhere that you actually enjoy coming in and working and and you enjoy getting better.
Devin Young (22:26)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (22:42)
I remember, you know, I it because of basketball, it’s been tough, right? Because I’m always almost always siloed. I’m always in a different weight room. And you’re almost like the stepdad that visits, you know, every once in a while. Like you come in, you’re like, hey guys, you know, and everybody’s like, Connor’s here, you know, cool. But like you’re not a part of that full legit group necessarily. I’m not saying I’m just saying that’s my kind of been my experience in the past. But I remember, you know, when I was at Tennessee, we had a group of people who I stay in contact with almost every single day. you know, Johnny, John Fabrizius and
Devin Young (22:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Connor (23:12)
multiple time guest on here. I think everybody who I worked with has been a guest on the show. but you know, he and I read, we were just talking about in his episode that we’re reading a book series together and we text each other about it every single day. Like, you know, but that’s also it’s fantastic. I love it, you know, but we’re really good friends. But because we’re good friends, I also know I can go up to him, I can ask him questions. I can help him problem solve. He can help me problem solve. And it’s because we have this, you know, deep friendship, you know, he ended up being one of my groomsmen, right?
Devin Young (23:22)
Okay. that’s awesome.
Connor (23:40)
that, you know, we’re able to help each other get better as well too. How do you balance that, the aspect of having fun and continuing to work? Like you said, everybody’s involved in a course, everybody is, you know, can some doing some form of continuing education, but you know, you still have to be pretty self-motivated to be able to get better in an environment where you’re having fun too. How does that balance work?
Devin Young (24:00)
I think it’s also again, it’s the people, right? Like I am truly again, I can only speak for myself, right? I can maybe I’ve seen Taylor, I’ve seen Brennan, I’ve seen it, like you know what I’m saying? I can mention them, but I won’t speak on them. F first of off, before I start about that, every Wednesday we do continuing ed. So as a staff, we sit down. So whether we’re going through a course together, we’re looking at an article, someone is doing a presentation on a specific thing, maybe they’re working on with their teams, or we’ll actually started last summer doing program and audits.
So we will sit down in front of the entire staff and we go through our entire program. KPIs, force plate numbers, we go through everything, right? And that way you get feedback from outsiders of like, hey, yeah, this was good, but you think about this or this and that. And just a way for us to kind of like audit ourselves year by year with our teams. So staff continuing ed every Wednesday. So that just allows us all coming together, right? We have a set time, a set date where like, hey, we are gonna sit down and we are gonna learn something.
could be from anything as we’ve we’ve done multiple things over the years and a lot. I think personally for myself, it’s probably a little bit of an imposter syndrome, feeling like there’s something I don’t know or I’m not good at. So I’m gonna make sure I am doing everything in my power to get better at that, to provide the best for my athletes and myself. I like training myself. I want to get stronger. I want to get faster. Like, so if I can learn something that’s gonna help me to also help my athletes at the same time, like that’s a win win.
And I think every year in one of our what’s the word I’m looking for? Not appraisals, goals we have for the year and all that. It’s like always like, what’s a long-term goal for you? And I always put, I wanna be one of the best strength coaches I can be, which is an arbitrary goal. You can’t measure it, you can’t do anything. It’s kind of this like forever path that I’m on. But it’s something I’m working towards, right? I wanna be the best I can at what it is. That might be in the micro of Pitt, that might be the macro of Pennsylvania, that might be
The whole field. And again, there’s no way to judge or do that. You’re great. I’m great. Tommy down the street’s great. We’re all great. Our kids love us. They get results. They don’t get hurt. You’re a great strength coach. But I think this mindset of wanting to be the best also pushes me to want to keep learning, want to keep growing. And again, I’m sure how many years have you been in the profession?
Connor (26:12)
eleven. Eleven now. Yeah.
Devin Young (26:13)
Eleven, we
could have the next three lifetimes in this profession and you wouldn’t fully understand how the body works, how the mind works, how the central nervous system like you know I’m saying there’s just so much we can learn that like you’ll never know everything, which again pushes me to wanna all right if I got one lifetime, let me try to be the best I can at this and learn as much as I can to provide the best I can for my athletes. Sorry, long-winded answer, I think, to like a short question.
Connor (26:19)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
No, no, no. Come on. You you as a podcast host, you know, know that we love the long-winded answers because
it allows us to, you know, continue to ask questions. You know, I I I love the programming audits that you mentioned because I feel like it’s something that can really help drive everybody to be better with their programming, right? you know, ultimately, like you said, people get their eyes on it and they can see, okay.
There’s some potential thoughts that didn’t even occur to you that I can help you with and maybe we can do that to help get the program better. And it’s a little bit of a a selflessness aspect as well too, right? There’s a little bit of a let me get rid of my ego and let’s go through my program and let’s talk about it. Are those nerve wracking at all? I mean, I would imagine I’d be pretty nervous to get up in front of my group of peers and go through everything that I do.
Devin Young (27:14)
Again, I’m coming back to the the shared space, the shared office. You know what I’m saying? Like it there’s no egos, right? Like if I ask a question or I bring something to someone else, I’m not trying to make fun of you or put you down. I legitimately like have you ever thought of this? Like I’m all the time looking at even we’re not doing program arts. I’ll Brennan sits behind me in the current space we’re in now, and I’ll turn around and be like, Hey, this is the rep scheme I’m thinking about. This is the intensity I’m looking with. Obviously, I’m big on
Connor (27:17)
Yeah.
Devin Young (27:41)
Contraction and tempo stuff like this at the tempo. Like, what are you thinking? And like, I want her honest feedback. And if she says, hey, that is a terrible idea, which normally is the training I’m doing for myself, and she’s tagged along on some programs I’ve written, and there’s one we’ve done together that was the worst idea ever. But we tried it. But again, I I don’t think it’s nerve-wracking at all, but I think that also just comes down to the staff we have and the relationship and the trust and the
professionalism of like, hey, we all want to get better. Like it’s not anyone putting someone down or feeling like if I say something or I show air in this program, all of a sudden I’m in a hot seat to maybe not. It’s not like that at all, which I think makes the whole process even better because now there is less of a fear you’re truly just trying to improve and get better.
Connor (28:26)
Yeah, it’s definitely the underlying relationship, right? Like you said, you know that this person cares about you, so they just want to help you get better. which I can see would really be exciting, right? ‘Cause then you again you can make sure you have the best program for your athletes. I think everybody just wants to do the best by their athletes possible. Nobody wants to go out there and say, Let me put something together bad, you know, or or something that I think is really good, but I’m not gonna have anybody else check it because
Devin Young (28:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Connor (28:48)
I’m nervous about what other people could say too. So again, with that relationship piece, that’s obviously huge. This is a question I get a lot from younger strained coaches. So I’m curious to see how you would answer it. you know, they kind of ask me all the time about how do you go about continuing education? These are, you know, typically these are GAs or people who just graduated from grad school. and they’re curious about, you know, what your personal approach is to continue education, how you continue to grow as a coach. How would you answer that question if a GA or a young coach asked you that?
Devin Young (29:18)
I would say first off, you have to take a self-audit. What are you very bad at? If you’re like, hey, I really don’t know how to get kids faster. I don’t understand sprinting. Okay. Well, that’s a good step. Now maybe we’re going down to sprinting. And that might be simple as it’s always going to come down to budget, right? If I’m a g the amount of money I’ve spent this last year on continuing ed is disgusting. And I’m my wife’s like, Why can’t we afford this? And I’m Well, I just spent five grand this year on continuing ed. So it’s probably I’m probably a bad example for this because I will
Connor (29:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Devin Young (29:45)
dump extreme amounts of money on continuing ed. Cause I look at it one or two ways. I’m either going to invest time or I’m going to invest money. One of them’s going to help me, one of them’s going to not. So I’ll do whatever I can. But hey, it might be a book. Cool. You’re going to get a fifteen dollar book on Amazon used and that’s where you’re going to start. Right. From there, maybe it’s finding again social media is a double edged sword. It’s great. It’s awful, but like you can find anyone on there, right? You can find
The Altis crew, you can find Spellman, whoever you want to think about for speed, and now you get an inside look at what they do. There’s also a great thing called a messenger and you can message them. They probably also have a link to their website where there’s more like I’m saying, it’s just finding what you’re not great at and then going into it. And one thing I try to tell our interns, because I’m currently running our internship program, is invest in people. Books are great, courses are awesome that you’re gonna get a head start, you’re gonna get a good foundation.
In the last three years, I feel like I have grown most in a as a coach because I’ve invested in people to mentor me and help me along the way. And whether that’s doing site visits, that’s doing online cohorts, that’s doing phone calls, it it’s been the best, right? It saved me years of time versus yeah, I probably could have learned it in a book, but how many books have you read in afterwards? You’ve got 17 questions on a topic and you’re like, Well, who do I ask this to? Having a mentor now.
allows you to then ask those questions as you’re going through. So I’m a big believer in like finding people, finding people that either are doing what you believe in or have a point of view that’s the same as you and trying to reach out to them. Do they do console calls? Do they do site visits? Do they offer anything that can help you get in? Go intern for them. If you have a summer free, go intern. That’s the best way to learn because now you’re going to be hands on in the mix.
learning and doing at the same time.
Connor (31:43)
Yeah. No, I think that’s fantastic advice. And, you know, I I it’s funny, I think again, everybody will almost say the older coaches I speak with almost always say it’s gonna be finding people to speak with that is gonna be the best thing. Right. you know, and the advice I I almost always give too is on top of that, have you actually really sat down and and talked in depth with the coaches you work with?
You know, have you actually really gone and asked them about the things that you know that they specialize in? Cause like you mentioned a pit, you know, there’s coaches who, you know, everybody has a great general knowledge base, but then they specialize in certain things. And so why don’t you speak to the coach about what their specialization is and why don’t you really learn as much as you can from there? You know, this stems from me from when I was at Texas Tech. You know, I was with football, you know, for a majority of my career at that point. And I thought conditioning was, you know, half gasers. And and so I had no clue. And then we were really strong, but we were out of shape.
And so from a conditioning aspect, I had to go speak with Katie Munger. so we sat down and we talked a lot about different conditioning and we really spent a lot of time to where it was something I had anxiety about previously. Like you said, with the self-audit, I knew I was really not good at it. and then to the point where now I feel really confident and speaking about it and and talking about what our process is and why we do the things that we do, just because of Katie. Right. And so it’s funny because it it’s almost like people want to reach out.
Devin Young (32:33)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (32:59)
you know, even further out and it’s like, Well, why don’t you talk to the people you know immediately first ’cause they’re gonna be willing to help you and they’re gonna give you some really good advice too.
Devin Young (33:06)
No, absolutely. Like I said, once Connor steps foot in the office, I guarantee you I have a thirty minute sit down with him every week on return to play stuff and he’s gonna hate me by the time we’re done. But I’m gonna make sure I get as much out of him as I can because he’s in house. Like we’re together. Like why wouldn’t you use people around you to elevate yourself?
Connor (33:22)
Yeah, absolutely. Connor Shep is also another former podcast guest as well, too. So this is it’s we’ve got a lot of mirror connections. Yeah. I think he’s a hot commodity. I think people want to make sure they talk to him. so you mentioned social media, right? You kind of mentioned the double edged sword aspect of it, which I think a lot of people are aware of at this point. you know, I’ve posted on social media in the past. It’s brought a lot of positive work, you know, into my life. One of the things that led to is being able to host this podcast, which is something I am very passionate about and I truly enjoy. You know, what has you’re obviously very consistent.
Devin Young (33:27)
Can’t think of a podcast he probably hasn’t been on at this point. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Connor (33:52)
social media poster. I think you post really high quality content as well too. You know, what is posting on social media done for you and for your career?
Devin Young (34:04)
God, what has it done for my career? I I I don’t know because like I I got to pit without it, right? Like if you look at all my stops beforehand, you scroll back. I I think when you get sent me the questions, I like scroll back to see like what was the first thing I posted strength and conditioning wise, and I had to scroll a ways, ways back. So you said I am a heavy poster now. but like I got to where I wanted to be, like I got to a P4 job.
without that, right? It was all based off of just resume, hard work, people around me, good networks. But I think honestly what it’s helped me in my career is one network, right? Like it’s allowed me to now people like you are reaching out to me to want to have conversations with, right? Coaches are seeing whether it’s my full on templates, like if one you see one of my workout templates on, that is what we did. And if you zoom in hard enough, there’s probably three or four things spelled wrong in it. There’s probably something like that is the template I send my kids that we use.
Connor (34:55)
Yeah.
Devin Young (35:00)
allowed coaches to ask questions, right? It also allowed me, I think, when I put stuff out, if it is more of an in depth post or it is of my workout and within the captions trying to explain, I have to really know what I’m doing and what I’m trying to get a point to get it through because I am I’m not a great typer. I’m a bad texture, I spell things wrong. I’m very much more of a face to face communicator, is what I like to do, but also I don’t like putting my voice on Instagram because I hate listening back to it. So
There’s another side weird thing there. But again, it has just made me make sure, like, all if I’m doing my whiteboard sessions and I’m talking about something, is this the right information? If I’m explaining a workout or a style of training I’m doing, do I truly know it enough to have someone on the other side read it? And maybe it’s a better coach than me, which there’s plenty of them out. They’d be like, You are completely wrong. This is not how this works. And now they’re just firing back on me in the comments. So really it’s just allowed me another way of like learning, double checking myself to make sure I truly know what I’m doing.
with my athletes and then sharing.
Connor (36:01)
Yeah. Yeah. I I I I think that’s certainly a benefit that I’ve seen as well too. Where if you post content, you’ve got to know it, right? You don’t truly know it until you can teach it, which is obviously a mantra for a lot of us as coaches. But it’s funny when you put something out into the strength and conditioning universe, you’ll get a lot of opinions, right? because it’s the most gray profession of all time. Nothing’s black and white. but then on top of that too, like I’ve gotten feedback before where it’s really made me look at my processes. It’s made me look at what I do. And I thought I think it’s made me better as a coach too. So
Devin Young (36:08)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (36:29)
It’s almost to me like a program audit, right? But from a a whole universe perspective. and then you get to make sure that you’re really on top of your game. I love that you say, you know, you have a realistic version of it too, right? ‘Cause for social media it’s done a lot of really positive things for me. for a lot of people who post, you know, I’ve just been fortunate. I got lucky, you know, with kind of how certain things fell you know, into my path. But I like that you mentioned that, you know, it’s really something that’s just kind of a tool for to help me improve as a coach. But your success and
Devin Young (36:31)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (36:58)
getting to where you want to be had was allowed to you by your hard work, right? It didn’t like, you know, it didn’t get you the job at Pitt because you’re this elite social media poster, but it’s help helped you improve as a coach, which is the realistic aspect for a lot of strength coaches who couldn’t go through and post. and now that I I play that back in my head, I sound like such a braggard. I was gonna have another word for that, but I don’t cuss, but but it’s realistic, you know, and it’s something where you know, again, it can just help you be a better coach. I’m curious too, like,
Devin Young (37:01)
Mm-hmm.
Nah nah. Nah, you’re good.
Connor (37:27)
What do you get out of doing the podcast? Like what what do you enjoy about the podcast? And and do you feel like you get that same process of getting better that you do as social media as the podcast?
Devin Young (37:37)
So I guess the Talking Pit podcast was an accident. It was supposed to be Brennan McDonald. And then her and Steph were supposed to co host it. And I happened to run a podcast prior to getting to Pitt. I had Coach Mock on back, I think within like her first year at Mississippi State. And I literally was just Googling strength coaches, typed her typed in whatever, went to Mississippi State. I was like, She looks nice. I’ll see if she’ll want to come on the podcast. And she came on. So I was more on like the back end, like helping edit, helping
What height what host service do we use? How do we get it on Apple? How do we get it on Spotify? Like more so the back engineering of it. And then one day it just happened to be where Brennan was busy, Steph was busy, someone needed to host it. I did it. And then it just kind of hosted another one. Hosted another one. Coach Mock was in the middle of volleyball, so really didn’t have the time for it. We came back to a staff meeting after Christmas break. I was like, Cool, you ready to go back to hosting the podcast? She’s No, you’re doing great. Keep it up. And it just then
Connor (38:32)
Ha ha ha.
Devin Young (38:34)
became my thing. again, like anything else, right? Like you’re talking to coaches, right? Like I’m reaching out to people who have no idea who I am, just like you do. And now we’re trying to have a conversation that’s not awkward. I’m not maybe talking about things that are going to enrage someone. And I basically got to have a find a way for them to like me so that way the listener enjoys it. Feels like it’s a conversation back and forth with old friends, with someone I literally maybe had a three minute blurb with before we hit record and went with it.
So I think being able to communicate, being able to find ways to get the most out of your guests, make them feel comfortable, which again then ties back to the weight room. I’m gonna have a bunch of freshmen coming in who have never been in a weight room before. Some of them might have never lift before. How do I get the most out of them? How do I make this a safe space? How do I make them do something that let’s face it, when I have you do two-minute long long-duration ISOs in a split squat position, there’s nothing fun about that.
But how can I relay that information to make sure that they’re getting the most out of it and doing what I need them to do, but not in a dictatorship way where it’s my way or the highway. So again, all about communicating, all about how do you present yourself, how do you speak and kind of build this relationship.
Connor (39:44)
Yeah. So you had experien you hosted your own podcast before that first sorry.
Devin Young (39:48)
Yeah. So
I I was a GA. I remember ’cause I was driving in for something and someone posted new episode Cal Deets. And again, this was like a first year GA, just finished riding Triphasic. I thought it was the be all end all of everything. Triphasic’s great. I’m not saying it’s not. but again, like I was in that point in my career, right? And I listened to the episode and I was like, it’s the same four stories. It’s the girl who did RPR and then she did the assault bike and her R her resting heart rate went down ten and
Connor (40:06)
Mm-hmm.
Devin Young (40:18)
Again, great information. I’m not hating on Cal in any way, shape, and form, but like the more I was listening, really diving in the podcast, and all these guests were coming on, and he’s on this show, he’s on this show, she’s on that show. I was like, it’s the same stuff. But it was never the conversations that like we would have in the office. It wasn’t the conversations we’d have at conference, right? So I was like, you know what? Let me start my own podcast. And I had a bunch of guests on and I set it up to where every three to four guests basically were asked the same question.
So then you had different perspectives on it. How do you handle upper admin? How do you handle low pay in the field? It was more so again, the conversations that we would have at the CSCCA, or you have with your intern, like, Hey, you sure you want to get this profession? You’re gonna work for almost no money for the first couple of years, move around a lot, and then hopefully land a job that you can live off your salary and you like. But again, it was never like that. So I started doing it and I don’t know how many, I think
Twenty five, thirty episodes I did and then like everything else it fizzled out, COVID happened, moved jobs and kinda just ended.
Connor (41:24)
Yeah. Yeah. It it just happens, you know.
No, no, no, I don’t I don’t blame it whatsoever. Yeah, I I love that you’re asking the questions about kind of the tougher topics, right? That, you know, people feel like those conversations hap happen behind closed doors. you know, obviously hosting this podcast, like we’ve had a lot of conversations about low pay. We’ve had a lot of conversations about mental health for coaches and how to, you know, kind of keep your confidence, how to handle all the different adversities that come with it. And it’s interesting because
Devin Young (41:43)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (41:51)
I remember feeling a little bit nervous at first to ask questions like that because I I was, you know, again, this is something that’s going out to the public, right? I don’t have problems asking those questions in person because, you know, it’s conversation between us two. But when the conversation is recorded and everybody can listen to it and access it at any time that they want to, you know, as the host, I felt a little nervous to ask those questions. But what I found was so many people are willing to talk about it because a lot of people want to see a change within the profession, you know, and you can’t see a change without talking.
Devin Young (41:57)
Mm-hmm.
Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I couldn’t agree with you more on that one.
Connor (42:19)
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you know, I’m curious too, so you run the internship program at Pitt currently, correct? Just for the summer. Okay. All right.
Devin Young (42:26)
Just for the summer. Just for the summer. Since
ste coach Seg left us the Florida State, someone needed to pick it up before we hired in which is Connor now, but that position technically takes over the internship. And Brennan’s got both soccer. So basically after summer two, her season just basically picks up and it’s crazy. Taylor’s dad of a three year old, Aaron has volleyball now. So I’m kind of the one that was like, I don’t really got much going on this summer, so I’ll I’ll take it over for the summer.
Connor (42:33)
Yep.
Yeah.
Okay, it’s enough for the summer. That’s exciting. So what has your process been for the summer? because obviously summer internships are some of the most beneficial because the students have a lot of time to be there. There’s typically not a lot of classes. what has your process been? How have you approached it for this summer?
Devin Young (43:11)
So Brenda did a really good job because she originally had it before Steph left and we had the little change of positions and whatnot. She did an awesome job with like first two weeks of onboarding, teaching cleans, back squats, like our standard of movement. we do a programming project, that basically they build out a whole fifteen week off season program throughout it, which is great for them now for a resume, going for a GA. They have something of like their thoughts of how they would program that’s been audited, looked at by full timers. So that way they’re not doing
10 by 10 for 15 exercises for the first week of training. but I basically set it up to where we meet once a day for at least an hour. And if you know anything about me, I am an awful lot time management. I’m always gonna overdeliver. So sometimes that’s an hour and a half. Sometimes I think we’ve come close to two hours. But every week we set something up. So Tuesday, we skip Monday. Tuesday, usually it’s something like, okay, we’re gonna talk about accessory stuff today, because that’s gonna be the next piece due in a week for your programming project.
Connor (43:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
Devin Young (44:09)
Then we’ll dive into some leadership stuff. Then we’ll dive into maybe nuances of programming that I’m not going to have them use for their programming project, but I want them to get an understanding of. Then there might be a tech talk. We might do something with our sports scientists. Every couple of weeks we’ll throw a Friday on a round table. So basically all the full timers will be there and they come for an hour, open questions. Sometimes it’s literally a free-for-all. Sometimes it’s like, hey, bring questions around.
Speed, conditioning, agility. What questions do you have? And you’ll get different perspectives of it. And this was the first year, the first time we did it, about two weeks ago. Our staff was just two of them were on vacation. Someone was doing something else. So I brought a c I brought an outsider in, a buddy of mine, Michael Tucker at Liberty. And I really liked the fact that you could talk to the coaches, but now you also were getting a networking opportunity speaking to another coach. So in another two weeks, we’re going to do it again. And I’m going to reach out to two other friends and have them zoom in.
Because again, I just think it’s awesome. Like you see how I’m programming, you see how I’m coaching. You’re already getting that hand experience. But what is someone you have no idea doing? What’s their thoughts around conditioning? So this is kind of something we do. try to get it done two or three times throughout the time they’re here. And then also every other week we’ll do a coaching drill, which I think this is something Brennan brought in from her time at Kentucky. Start out very simple. You’re the coach, you got to stand behind this line, far away to basically only be allowed to coach with your voice.
You got to take three of the full timers through a set of cleans and a set of back squats. The room is yours. How do you go about it? And we usually set it off with like me god, medium level of music, not a lot going on, one station. And every time they do it, the ante gets up. music gets louder, more exercises get thrown at you. Okay, now we’re doing a tri set where we’re going lap pull down, something else. So now there’s more flow to the room. How do you coach that? So basically trying to build them throughout the year to where now basically they are.
in a situation they’re coaching a full group, how do you go about that?
Connor (46:09)
Mm-hmm. Well, I I I really like the full fledged aspect of having an internship, right? Of, you know, okay, these are legitimate, here’s our times where we’re gonna meet. Here are things that we’re gonna do. and here are different drills and different perspectives that you’re gonna see from all these coaches. Cause I remember, you know, again, with basketball, I kind of just take on one or two interns at a time. I have them come work with me. and you know, when I first started out, I didn’t really have set meeting points. I would kind of just say, Okay, because of my
Devin Young (46:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Connor (46:36)
The schedule’s busy, you know, it’s kind of crazy, it changes a lot. you know, we’ll just talk about this when we can get to it. And obviously those things fell through the cracks, right? And, you know, it it really took from a self-audit standpoint, it took some reflecting to understand, I’m really hurting these people. you know, because they’re coming here to work for free and while you know, they can have an okay or good internship experience, you know, how can you actually make it elite? And how can you make it something where when they leave they could be really high level coaches? And that realization came to me honestly when
you know, I had an intern apply for another position. They did a reference call and I was just like, you know what? Like, I just don’t think this person’s really ready for that. And it was something where I felt like in that specific situation, if I had had a more organized program or if I had really spent more time diving in on what their specific weaknesses were, they would have been ready for it. You know, so it was a tough reflection for me, but I I love hearing out.
the full fledged process, having consistent meetings, doing these things on a regular basis, because that’s how people get really get better. And it’s clear why, you know, Pitt is really known as one of the best places to go as a young coach. I remember when Nico said he had the opportunity to go to Pitt, I was like, you’ve got to go because this is a place where you’re going to get better as a coach. Right. And I didn’t even really know anybody personally on staff. You know, now I know you, right? But at the same time, like I just knew it had a reputation of being successful. And it’s really good for young coaches to go there and get better. And I I appreciate hearing the process because it’s clear to see why.
Devin Young (47:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I wish it was all that, but I know myself, if I just freestyled it, it would be three weeks. I’d be like, I haven’t talked to them about anything. So at least scheduling it week by week, it’s harder for me not to have to move things. I I know if someone wants to do a zoom, if I’m on a podcast, if I’m recording a podcast, or I know at X amount of day I’m working with okay, we gotta do another time. So for me, it just helps me keep more organized. It’s selfishly for me. It’s not for them. It’s so that I stay organized. a hundred percent.
Connor (48:08)
Yeah, yeah.
Of course, of course, obviously. yeah, well, everything’s for us at the end of the day. So
yeah. Well, Devin, thank you so much, man. Seriously, it’s been great to get to know you better. it’s been great to hear about your different processes. You know, again, I love hosting this podcast because I feel like it makes me better and I I feel like you made me better today as a coach too, because I can really reflect on a lot of things that were of importance during this episode. So I really appreciate it. If somebody okay, now this is a chance to shout it out. If somebody wants to listen to Talking Pit or
Devin Young (48:40)
Mm-hmm.
Connor (48:53)
follow your social media would be the best way to do so.
Devin Young (48:56)
Talking Pit is on Spotify, Apple, Google. I think any option I could have tagged to put it up, it’s on there and all that. episodes are normally, and I say normally because I’m a human being and things happen. Every other week and all that, I’m in the process of uploading one for this Friday, which is going to be a fun episode because the tables are turned again. Someone is actually interviewing me on the Talking Pit episode and odd. So we did we did something a little bit different. So special guest for that one. It I think it’s gonna be a good episode.
Connor (49:03)
Yeah.
There there you go. Okay.
Devin Young (49:26)
you want to follow me on social media? I think it’s Devin underscore SNC coach. I post a lot of training stuff, a lot of my own training, a lot of my team’s training, workout cards. I’ve got a whole whiteboard series I’m doing now, and that’s basically my not stance and not what’s the word I’m looking for? Not fight against all the AI generated infographs people are putting up. So I just wanted to do something that was different, but also help.
Being me out and helping people out. So, and I as a strength coach, who doesn’t like writing on whiteboards? I love whiteboards as a strength coach. So it it’s perfect. but yeah, follow me on there, shoot me a DM. I’ll get back to you eventually. I’ll reach out. Like I talked about Keith earlier in this podcast, and as much great things as he taught me, X’s and O’s and things like that. The one thing that sticks with me the most is he always said pay it forward. So kind of giving him a little bit of a legacy and the live on.
Connor (50:01)
Of course. Of course, yes.
Devin Young (50:25)
I try to keep that in the forefront. If anyone DMs me, wants to hop on a phone call, they’re free. I don’t charge you for and all that. I probably should at some point. But any coach that I can help out along the way, I’m more than willing to.
Connor (50:39)
Wow, well that’s awesome, man. And I do highly recommend for the listeners to go check out the whiteboard series because I’ve really enjoyed it since you’ve been posting it. so
Devin Young (50:46)
Good. I’m glad people
are liking them. I’m not sure if they hit or not, and I do apologize for my awful handwriting. It it’s it’s also helping me write neater, so I’m trying that as a
Connor (50:53)
It makes it
it makes it more authentic to me. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t I don’t know if I’d trust you as much if you spent too much time worrying about the handwriting versus what the content is. So I like it.
Devin Young (50:56)
Okay.
Yeah.
There’s a certain point I’m like trying to write something and I’m like, screw it, it’s just gonna be what it’s gonna be.
Connor (51:10)
Which is fine by me. Again,
more authenticity. So, well, Devin, thank you so much, man. It’s it’s been really great to have you on.
Devin Young (51:17)
Thank you, Connor man. Always a pleasure. Let me know if you want to do it again.
Connor (51:20)
Absolutely.
