Strength and conditioning department adds two interns

While spectators see athletes in competition all the time, many never see the work going on behind the scenes, especially in the weight room.
Head strength and conditioning coach Darryn Fiske has worked with St. Bonaventure athletes in the weight room for 16 years, but this semester, Fiske added interns Connor Borowski and Jacob Gray to his staff.
Borowski received a degree in broadcast communications from University of Pittsburgh at Bradford before receiving his master’s in science from California State University of Pennsylvania in performance enhancement and injury prevention.
“Being an all online grad school, you don’t have interactions with people, so I talked to Coach Fiske all throughout the fall,” Borowski said. “We had set up for me to come in and intern for this semester so I can have the experience to have some knowledge for when I get into the real world of this profession.”
Gray, a native of Greeley, Colorado, went to a conference as part of his internship search and attended a discussion led by Fiske.
“I introduced myself to him, gave him my information because he mentioned he could use some interns, so I talked to him, and now I’m here to do my internship for school and to get my certification,” Gray said.
Borowski said, despite the title of intern, he and Gray have more responsibilities than one might think. A big part of the job is ensuring safety of all the athletes that strength and conditioning works with, especially ensuring form when lifting is good in order to prevent injury. In addition, teams lift at the same time, and some, such as softball, have a large team to fit into the weight room, so Borowski and Gray help to ensure teams are moving around the gym safely.
Each intern has also been assigned a team to work with in the weight room. Gray has taken over for men’s and women’s tennis, and Borowski works with men’s and women’s cross country and track.
“I write the program for tennis,” Gray said. “Some of the things I have to take into consideration are are they in-season, how close are they to the A10 tournament, how close are they to a break?”
Borowski said it is important to understand the energy system a team is using for its specific sport and make sure the lifting regimen matches and helps the athletes become better.
“Tennis is an aerobic sport, where they do a lot of sprints and have a lot of time to recover quickly,” Borowski said. “Cross country and track can be split in two, where cross country is more aerobic and long-distance, and track could be more of a sprint, so we need to know how to train them in the weight room that corresponds to their respective sports.”
Now that both interns have been working with the athletes for about a month, Gray said he’s learned a lot thus far and gained a lot of experience. Each is beginning to become more well-rounded in terms of coaching and the science behind strength and conditioning
“If you’re really book-smart, but can’t coach, it doesn’t matter, and same way around, if you can coach, but you don’t know anything, it doesn’t matter,” Gray said. “Being here has made me a more well-rounded coach. I’ve never worked with this many people all at once. It’s taught me to be louder and to coach more efficiently and not be so technique-driven.”
Borowski said his experience coaching baseball has taught him how to coach multiple athletes at the same time, but working with Fiske has been great.
“He works with us and helps us become better coaches and how to teach the athletes properly,” Borowski said. “If anybody has a chance that wants to get into this profession that has an opportunity to intern with Coach Fiske, I think they should. He’s a great mentor, and I’m learning every day.”