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GOSSAGE: A morning in April

Mendenhall, Bronco 4

13 FTB Photoday - Coat and Tie portraits

August 8, 2013

Photography by Elisa T. Adamson/BYU

Copyright BYU Photo 2013
All Rights Reserved
photo@byu.edu   (801)422-7322
Mendenhall, Bronco 4 13 FTB Photoday - Coat and Tie portraits August 8, 2013 Photography by Elisa T. Adamson/BYU Copyright BYU Photo 2013 All Rights Reserved photo@byu.edu (801)422-7322

“Nothing was worse than spring football practice,” my dad, who suited up for Vanderbilt in the ’70s, used to say. Those early mornings outside; that lethal combination of weightlifting and wind-sprints. Yet when the players’ coach Steve Sloan parted ways with the Commodores and the stern Fred Pancoast stepped in, my dad and his teammates came to realize what was even worse than spring practice was spring practice after a coaching change.

Members of the Virginia football team shared that sentiment Thursday morning at the McCue Center. A half hour into their eleventh spring practice, the offensive and defensive linemen were going at it in the trenches, and a scuffle broke out. The pile soon cleared up, players in one color jawing at those in the other on their way back to the sideline. They seemed proud.

Then came the whistles, the hollers and the mass migration to the end zone closest to John Paul Jones Arena. Cavalier players had a pretty good idea of what awaited them. They just didn’t know how many of those dreaded up-downs they’d have to do.

“There’s simply an exchange rate,” coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “Sometimes when you travel to foreign countries, you put a dollar and you get so much back. I set the exchange rate. The lesson now that’s been taught — I love empowering, and I’ve empowered the team to this equals this. Choose.”

Mendenhall set the rate of exchange Thursday at 100 up-downs. His Virginia team counted them out loud in unison, hitting the ground hard and popping back up between reps. Senior quarterback Matt Johns stood front and center at the goal line, his eyes scouting out struggling teammates and his voice motivating them to push through the pain.

Meanwhile, the Cavalier coaching staff observed. Running backs coach Mark Atuaia, who'd told a group of winded linemen in the far corner to draw strength from their leader Johns, yelled, “Fifteen yards going the other way doesn’t help us.” Atuaia also drew attention to complacency in the back row, which immediately brought over his head coach.

Mendenhall called out someone in the back who wouldn’t touch his chest to the turf, questioning how he could give his all post-whistle in the scuffle but coast during both the drill and up-downs. Not liking what he was seeing out of his guys, Mendenhall took away a nickel and a dime. Johns relayed to his distant teammates that instead of reaching 60 they were again counting in the 40s.

Once they’d finally hit the century mark, Mendenhall wasn’t pleased with the transition to 1-on-1 drills. It was neither fast nor smooth enough. He and his assistants ordered the Cavaliers to return to that end zone, where Johns and company completed twenty more up-downs each of two occasions. Even junior linebacker Micah Kiser, a regular stalwart in the Cavalier defense, started showing signs of fatigue.

When asked how that stretch of Thursday’s practice was, the 2016 All-ACC first-team member gave an honest answer.

“Terrible,” Kiser said. “And coach Mendenhall won’t quit until you do it perfect, so we did like 170 I feel like. But it’s making us better, so we’ll be alright.”

Mike London was a players’ coach, much-loved like Sloan. With all due respect to the former Virginia coach, who recruited incredible talent to Charlottesville and built better men, London wasn’t an enforcer, an instiller like his successor. Mendenhall expects mental toughness, attention to detail and an unrelenting work ethic.

If you let him down, he doesn’t have to be your friend. That much was clear Thursday.

“In the past, there’s just no punishment, no reason that you wouldn’t keep doing those things, because you don’t know better,” senior center Jackson Matteo said. “Now, if you do a bad thing — if you leave a piece of trash in the locker room, if you get in a fight in practice — there’s going to be punishments handed down… We took it, and we ate it.”

Following the up-downs, Mendenhall purposefully arranged the drills or “periods” listed on his practice plan into an order that would challenge the minds and bodies of his Cavalier players even more. Only he and football performance coach Frank Wintrich ever know what periods are coming next. As is the case with Mendenhall, this uncertainty is all by design.

“It’s the fog of war,” assistant head coach and defensive line coach Ruffin McNeill said. “We don’t know what period we’re going to next as coaches. The only people that know are coach [Mendenhall] and Frank. So we have to wait… In the game it’ll calm down for them. A lot of the guys understand that we’re not going to get tired, this is how we practice and it’s that way every day.”

For now, Virginia is still getting used to the chaos and the agony of spring practice under Mendenhall. More up-downs and tempo runs loom in the warm weeks ahead, and the competition for starting spots is well underway. But just as spring practice ended for my dad and his teammates, the Vanderbilt coaches surprising them with platters of fresh watermelon, it will finish well for the Cavaliers.

And they will remember spring practice not only as the worst, but also as the best time of their lives.

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