I just got through talking to a parent who took their son down to East Carolina this past weekend for a Sunday afternoon college football combine.
The kid is a rising HS senior, and from 2-6pm on Sunday down in Greenville, N.C., they put this defensive back through the paces. The 40 yard dash, the vertical jump, shuttle run, standing long(broad) jump, the bench press for max reps, and the drop-back cone run(All in the EXTREME 98 degree heat)……
The kid stands 5’11 and weighs 190 pounds which is good size for a college defensive back. He ran the 40 in 4.4, pumped 185 pounds 18 times on the bench press, and jumped 10 feet in the standing broad jump.
By comparison I used to do the 40 in 4.85 if I was lucky, the weights were not a problem with 250 pounds going 25 times on the bench press, but that was on a universal machine and today they use free weights only which is much tougher and as far as the standing broad jump goes, 10 feet is like going from the foul line to the base line on a basketball court. That is a huge standing leap on anybody’s stat chart. A standing long jump of ten feet, unreal. Try it some time or call Carl Lewis…..
The colleges charge for the kids to come in and participate in these combines and there were 90 young men in Greenville on Sunday at ECU. The people I talked to have plans to attend future combines at Wofford, Wingate, and at James Madison University.
These workouts sound very interesting to me and if you are a student that is going to go in this direction and hit the college football combine scene, I suggest that you have your parents contact Carmine Pagano at Carolina Acceleration and have him set up a pre-combine training program for you.
*****If you have plans to organize your own training routine at home then good luck, but again, you may need the more extended preparation that Carmine and his staff have to offer.*****
Carmine and his staff do a very good job, no doubt. My family knows first hand. And Carmine was an athlete himself so he knows of what he speaks. In addition he studied and is trained at what he does. However in fairness to others, there are others that also do a good job. Parisi Speed School is a proven program nationally and locally. Velocity has a lot of fans. John S. at NC Baseball Academy does a good job and has his supporters, plus the many other individual trainers out there including the new programs at Proehlific Park. What works for one may not work for everyone. All of these programs have done a good job for many.