NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, Season 6 Episode 7: Elton Crochran

Learn about middle school and high school strength and conditioning from 2022 NSCA Coaches Conference presenter Elton Crochran. Coach “Croc” shares his story about transitioning from collegiate strength and conditioning to his work as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Randolph Field School District in San Antonio, TX. Crochran is currently the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Veterans Memorial High School. He talks about his hands-on coaching session from Coaches Conference, as well as developmental milestones across key stages of long-term athlete development.  Find “Coach Croc” on Instagram: @ecrock2 or Twitter: @TheCrocShow| Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscsShow Notes“There has to be a certain element of education, as well as a certain level of just having fun.  Because at the end of the day, you want to help develop those middle school athletes to develop a love for the game, but more importantly, develop a love for the process.” 12:20 “Not everybody's going to play in college, not everybody's going to play professionally. But strength and conditioning from a health standpoint, there's so much value to it and you're instilling that not just at the high school level but at the middle school level.” 20:32 “When you add a tennis ball to a drill, just the kids get mind blown and they're like oh my gosh, this drill just got harder just by holding on to this tennis ball. So now, I learn a lot of these things from PE just working on hand eye coordination and things like that. So now I'm integrating things that we do in PE, crossed over to strength and conditioning, and now we're combining the two.” 30:30 “I think one of the biggest growth is I always tell people as a strength coach, you should carry yourself as an exercise scientist, because there is a science to what we do.” 34:18