Cincinnati Bearcats Head S&C Coach Niko Palazeti Podcast

Things were moving quickly at The University of Cincinnati as the school's athletic director scoured the football world for a replacement for Head Coach Luke Fickell who had departed to take on a struggling program in Madison, Wisconsin. A little over a week later, Cincinnati A/D/ John Cunningham was welcoming in his new football coach, Scott Satterfield, to take the reins of a program that has seen winning and lots of it in recent history. 

 

Meanwhile, one hundred miles to the north, in Columbus, Ohio, at Ohio State Football, assistant strength and conditioning coach Niko Palazeti was busy training his groups of Buckeye football stars at The Woody Hayes Athletic Center under the direction of his mentor and the Director of Football Sports Performance, Mickey Marotti. The Buckeyes were in training for another run in the College Football Playoffs. However, things were about to change for Coach Palazeti.  As the newly named UC Football Coach Satterfield began familiarizing himself with the Bearcats' athletics building, the Richard Lindner Center, he knew that his real and immediate focus was to find someone to take direction of the team's strength and conditioning program, often the heart and soul of a team, and assure the current roster of Bearcats that the uncertainty and doubt that they were experiencing was coming to an end. The Bearcats are now official members of the Big 12 Conference. In fact, the Oklahoma Sooners will be in town on September 23rd, so the football program was in real need of a strength & conditioning coach with much needed experience to guide the team and reset the foundation. 

 

Phone conversations, texts, emails were suddenly lighting up the former Michigan State Spartan's cell phone. The Cincinnati Bearcats would like to interview Niko Palazeti! Things were moving fast and and   And, as it turns out, Niko Palazeti finished up his morning training-groups at Ohio State, changed shirt logos to a CINCINNATI "C" paw, and headed to I-71 South for the two hour drive 
to the Queen City along the Ohio River. Bearcat football coach Scott Satterfield would introduce him to the squad a few hours later.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a new focus for Palazeti, he needed a strength staff of his own. So, he finally was able to secure his new personnel:

Chris Friend (via Ohio State, football, hockey)

Scott Ethington (via Marshall, Maryland)
Brandon Garcia (via UNLV, Maryland)

Robert 'Robo' Williams (via Duke, Cincinnati)
Now that he had a staff, it became time to roll out the Winter Program and begin Coach Palazeti's first priority:

Prepare the Players for the demands of Spring Football

In today's ASAP ~Athletic Strength And Power Podcast, Niko and I discussed:

• the Cincinnati Bearcats opportunity
• his admiration of his mentor OSU's Mickey Marotti
• how the Bearcats attack the ever important region of the neck
• Spring football strength training objectives
• looking ahead to the Summer Program
• construction has begun on the new indoor facility and subsequent football building