Jerry Rice was famous for his legendary "hill" workout, a two-and-a-half mile nearly all uphill battle, in which athletes like Barry Sanders and Barry Bonds came to train with the great San Francisco wide receiver. Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton used to go home to Mississippi to run a 65-yard sprint in a nearby sandbank during the hottest hours of the day when the sand would blister the feet if he stopped moving to help build his leg strength for sharp cutting.
Good players can get by on talent alone, the truly great athletes rise above the rest because they put in the work when no one is watching in offseason workouts and extra hours in the gym after practice.
Triton, amid all the coaching changes in the past year, is in the beginning steps of creating an annual summer workout program to service not just one or a few of the school's athletes, but all Viking athletes, including those that don't even participate in sports.
The free Monday through Thursday two-and-a-half hour program focussing on an hour of conditioning and an hour of weight lifting, came about after hockey coach Kevin Dodier and assistant track coach Bill Adams had conversations with athletic director Dave Dempsey on ways to improve the Triton athletic community.
With rising costs in user fees across the board, Dodier and Adams specifically wanted to figure out cost-effective ways to help their athletes continue to train in the offseason without having to go to expensive camps or pricey personal trainers. Putting up flyers at the end of the year throughout the high school, the program took a little while to build in popularity, but through word of mouth has grown to the point that as many as 70 athletes have attended a given session.
"It's been hot and cold at time with kids going on vacation and others having to work certain days, but we've consistently had at least 40 athletes," said Dodier of the program that focuses on workouts that he and other Triton coaches went through when they were in college. "The program is free for the kids, though, and that's the best part. There are a lot of good camps around here, but it's pricey for them to do that and than do a high school sport."
It's a new way of thinking at Triton that serves several purposes. In its most basic implementation the program will help build better sports programs at the school that over time should help the Vikings grow to compete with the bigger schools in the Cape Ann League like Masconomet and North Andover.
"That's the ultimate goal," said Dodier. "But it doesn't happen overnight. Kids have to start believing in the system, and if they commit themselves you will start seeing better sports here.
"(Former Triton baseball coach) Steve Padovani told me that he went into North Andover (High) at a track event and saw 25 kids in the weight room all lifting together," said new basketball coach Ryan Souliotis, whose program has three summer league runnings this summer more than the zero of last summer, and also has consistently five to six players in Dodier's program each night. "That's what we are striving for here. We want to see the kids in there getting bigger and trying to make themselves better athletes."
However, with more and more coaches joining the gig — Donna Andersen, Stacey Beaulieu, and Erin Dempsey have all made regular appearances and added their two cents — as well as a growing number of Triton students joining the fray, Dodier and Dempsey hope to build camaraderie from sport to sport and team to team, something that should build a better school-wide community.
"What's pleasing me is that coaches are working together toward the common purpose of building better sports program and helping athletes get better in sports, which is what I envisioned," said Dempsey, who gave the credit to Dodier and Adams for starting the program. "The by-product is we are building an athletic community.
"After athletic workouts, all these athletes from different sports are going to out for pizza together," Dempsey explained. "And because they spend the summer helping each other become faster and stronger, the football team will support the basketball team, the soccer team will support the hockey team, and so on."
According to Dempsey, it's a program like Dodier's that will help make Triton not only a better athletic school, but a better place to go to school.
"In my opinion, high school is a microcosm of our society because all things that happen in society happen at high school," Dempsey continued, adding that students from band, the performance arts, technology have also participated in the summer exercises. "This program will improve relationships among players in different sports, which is important for young athletes so they know they are not on an island. The hockey program doesn't exist alone, the soccer program doesn't exist alone, they are all part of the school community.
"Ultimately what comes out of this is better athletes and better student athletes. The kids have a sense of respect for each other, and that has a positive impact on the school."
