By: Gabe Taylor '12
After gaining experience working at the Olympic Training Center, Cory Schlesinger (CS) brought his knowledge of strength and conditioning to Santa Clara. Less than one year in, Schlesinger is already making an impact on the men's and women's basketball teams with his approach to training, helping the student athletes avoid injuries and remain on the court. Schlesinger sat down with SantaClaraBroncos.com (SCB) to discuss his time as a Bronco, and his strategy for next season.
SCB: This being you first year at Santa Clara, what are your thoughts on how it's been so far?
CS: To be honest it's been great, unfortunately we didn't have the best season with basketball, but as far as injuries go, everyone who started the season in November ended the season without missing a game – other than a concussion, which you can't really train for that. Other than that, the people are great. It's really like a family atmosphere, so it's really close knit.
SCB: What's been your favorite part about the job?
CS: Directly working with the athletes. Very humble kids, really want to get better, especially at the mid-major level; really trying to make an imprint in Division I.
SCB: What did you take from working with the USOC that you have brought here?
CS: It was probably the mentality. They're at the highest level, so one thing I saw daily were the most driven individuals that you'll probably meet in an athletic setting. So trying to incorporate that mentality into our athletes, that's probably what I took the most from the Olympic Training Center.
SCB: As far as your approach, is there anything you might tweak for next season?
CS: Yeah, one thing that started my first year was really working to get their general base strength down, mostly for injury prevention reasons, not necessarily sports performance. Now we're getting more into more sports performance type lifts like Olympic lifts, and power lifts and things like that. We're really trying to create more of a sports performance mentality, opposed to just getting stronger and keeping injury free.
SCB: How would you like to see the offseason play out?
CS: As long as the kids come in everyday, working hard, I know we'll be in the best shape we can possible be in.