Georgia coach Mark Richt on Monday confirmed the expected hires of two new members of Joe Tereshinski's strength and conditioning staff.
It's official. Joe Tereshinski now has two new assistants on his strength staff in Athens.
John Thomas, the former director of strength and conditioning for Joe Paterno at Penn State the past 20 years, has been hired (as expected) as UGA's new senior associate director of strength and conditioning, which essentially makes him the No. 2 guy behind Tereshinski.
Speed coach Sherman Armstrong of Tampa, Fla., who previously said he'd accepted the job, has also been officially hired, Richt confirmed, as an associate strength and conditioning coach.
Thomas is to replace the departed Keith Gray and formally start after spring break, while Armstrong replaces Thomas Brown and has already started work in Athens.
"He's a guy that also has got a little bit of diversity from what we're doing with Coach T," Richt said of the former PSU coach. "Coach T is kind of a strength, explosive, endurance kind of guy. John is a little bit more of a high intensity training guy. So really, we're going to have really three guys that have tremendous diversity in how they train.
"With that, we're going to have plans for every one of our players. One size doesn't fit all in strength and conditioning. ... We feel like with the diversity of this strength staff, we're going to be able to cover every single base and every need of every player and just generate a lot of excitement throughout our offseason program."
Armstrong joins UGA's staff after previously founding and running VAST Sports Performance to train sprinters.
"One of the things that we felt like we needed to bolster within our strength and conditioning program was the element of speed," Richt said, "and Sherman, his whole program is built all around it. It's built around strength, speed and quickness. He's an expert on that, and now our players are going to have one of the best in the country in that regard to be in-house all the time training these guys."
"My primary role is to help our athletes get faster, loosen their hips up and pretty much improve the team's overall speed at every position," Armstrong said of his role at UGA. "That's the No. 1 goal. And then to also assist Coach T and the staff in helping our athletes develop strength."
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