S02|E205
Building a Strength & Conditioning Department with Dakota Wilson | Samson Strength Coach Collective
In this episode of the Samson Strength Coach Collective, we speak with Dakota Wilson, Director of Athletic Performance at Ouachita Baptist University. Dakota shares his journey from walk-on offensive lineman to full-time strength coach and the process of launching a new strength and conditioning department from the ground up.
Throughout the conversation, Dakota discusses the challenges of creating a performance program in a collegiate setting, the importance of mentorship, and how to establish trust and buy-in from sport coaches. He also highlights the foundational principles he builds his program around and what he looks for when hiring graduate assistants. This episode provides actionable insights for coaches seeking to develop culture, structure, and long-term success in their programs.
Key Takeaways
- Foundational training movements should come before sport-specific work.
- Developing trust and buy-in from both athletes and sport coaches is critical.
- Building a department requires support from administration and a long-term vision.
- Mentorship and reflection are essential for personal and professional growth.
- Communication across departments enhances training efficiency and athlete development.
- When hiring GAs, focus on mindset, coachability, and understanding of the profession.
“It’s one of those things where there’s a time and a place for some of those super sport-specific lifts… but if we don’t have any kind of a foundation, all we’re doing is asking for us to get hurt. Push, pull, squat, hinge, carry, sprint, jump, core. We’re going to do these eight things and we’re going to do them at an elite level.”
— Dakota Wilson
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Connor Agnew:
What’s going on Samson strength coach, collective listeners on today’s episode, we have Dakota Wilson. He is the director of athletic performance for Washington Baptist university. Thank you so much for coming on Dakota.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, man. I appreciate it. You you do a phenomenal job of this podcast. I’m excited to be a guest here today.
Connor Agnew:
Dude, I’m Jack to have you on. got to give background of how you became a guest on this show because I think it’s a good little lesson for every strength coach listening as well too. So Dakota and I originally met at CSCCA last year. He gave me his card and I immediately lost it like a dummy. Okay. And then I could not for the life of me remember what school Dakota was at. And then he actually reached out just a couple of weeks ago saying, Hey, you know, I know you mentioned to have me on the podcast. I’d love to still be on if he’d still love to have me as a guest.
and I was elated. was so happy that he reached out to me because I didn’t want to think I’m some jerk who just, you know, was trying to be nice and like, yeah, come on the podcast and then never actually have you on. So I think the lesson there is always reach out, even if you, you know, are nervous that it may not be the best idea. I promise you it’s a good idea. So I really appreciate you reaching out.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, Matt.
Connor Agnew:
Well, dude, I’m stoked to get into it. We already talked about some really exciting things pre-show, so I’m always excited to dive into especially winning cultures as well. Can you just give me a breakdown of your career and then what’s led you to leading Watch the Top at this university now?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
So man, started out, I got to Wausau as a walk on offensive lineman in 2014. I went to a high school where I won one high school football game in four years. I got here my first year, we went 10 and 0. I immediately realized, man, how much of this is coming from the culture, from the weight room, from how we train, all those kind of things. This was the first time in my athletic career we had had a strength conditioning coach working with us in the weight room.
and it seemed like an immediate tie-in to our success on the field. So then, you know, we were able to go 10-0 that first year. I played for a couple of years. I ended up getting hurt. I moved into a student coaching role, you know, with Ryan Tibbets, who’s now with the Milwaukee Brewers. You know, he was in a GA strength conditioning coach, assistant special teams coordinator role here because we didn’t have a full strength conditioning coach role here at Waushtow at the time. So he leaves and I’ve been able to kind of rely on him for some of these,
that growth in my career because of the fact that I’ve kind of had an untraditional route when it comes to becoming a director. You know, I went from a student coach at Ouachita to becoming a GA at Ouachita to becoming a full-time football assistant straight conditioning coach at Ouachita and then being able to grow it into a director of athletic performance here at the same school in 10 years. You know, so it’s kind of an untraditional path where you’re not getting
you know, you’re able to go and work for a great internship and get those ideas and be able to branch out. You know, a lot of that is that’s kind of built my career has been off of, you know, going and meeting coaches, you know, in Arkansas, in Oklahoma, in Texas, in Louisiana, on my own, out of my own kind of diamond pocket to go sit down, talk to them, learn like, like coach Roof at Baylor. Hey coach, how do you run your Olympic, your Olympic
strength conditioning department. Like how do you recruit GAs? How do you bring in assistants? What’s your criteria? Cause you know, there’s no one else in the room who’s like, Hey, of course this is how you bring someone in. This is how your interview went. I just got hired by a football coach. So he’s looking for someone who works hard and grinds and takes care of his business. Then I got hired by an AD that used to be a football coach. So it was like, okay, can you get us bigger, faster and stronger and have urgency in the weight room? Absolutely coach. Okay. Boom. So it’s one of those things where for me to grow,
Dakota Flash Wilson:
in my career the right way as a strength conditioning coach, I had to make sure I was checking those boxes with mentors like Alex Fodio at Central Arkansas, Smelser at Northwest Louisiana, Coach Roof at Baylor I mentioned. All these great coaches that I’ve been able to sit down with and talk to and learn so much from in my five years as a full time.
Connor Agnew:
Wow, I mean, that’s quite the story. It’s always exciting for me to hear people take that path. Like you said, it’s untraditional, but you said something very interesting in the beginning. Like you went from a team that had one win to all of sudden going 10 to no undefeated. What was the differences that you saw between those cultures?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
It was the urgency, the intensity and the effort. You know, every time going into the weight room, wasn’t, hey, you’re going in there to just lift. You’re coming in here with the intent to train, you know, and making sure that whatever we did in there was getting productive, not only for, you know, hey, my biceps look bigger in the mirror so I can try and go get a girlfriend because I’m lonely. Like whatever, it’s so I can actually do something better on the football field. That’s what we were trying to do in the weight room for the first time in my career.
So it was one of those things where there was immediate buy-in where the coach could say, hey, this push press is going to relate immediately to your punch because your hips and hands are connected. I’d never thought about that before, coach. So things like that had an immediate tie-in for just me as a freshman. And then I’m seeing old guys hold each other accountable and those kinds of things along with that. And it was something I’d never seen before.
Connor Agnew:
Was it like a culture shock for you? I mean, it must have been.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Yeah, absolutely. mean, in high school, not to rag on them too much, I mean, we had the, right, three by three on squat, three by three on bench, three by three on clean, I’ll be in my office, so if gets hurt. And we were just in there kind of blowing and going on our own, not really knowing what we were doing in the weight room. we were, I remember as a junior or senior in high school, just trying to steal workouts from people, because we didn’t have anybody going to college to play football.
So like trying to find people who get college manuals and be able to do that training on my own outside of what we were doing in the weight room. So being able to do those kinds of things. And then I got here, I got this thick, I think I still have it in my office, my freshman incoming workout manual from Coach Emmons. And I had that thing flipped open and I was sitting there, I got to do my circuit work today. And I’ve got this warmup. And it was one of those things where I’d never seen something so detailed and so much effort put into it from a training standpoint outside of just learning the playbook.
Connor Agnew:
So you feel like that effort from those coaches reflected in the effort from the players.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. mean, if you, if you go into a workout and you can tell your coach is just kind of throwing something together on the whiteboard, you know, it doesn’t matter how, how great of a coach he is on paper, how much, you know, he’s getting paid, all those kinds of things. But if you can tell somebody is coming in here with a ton of effort to help get you better and is setting those processes up, it immediately builds buy-in for you as an athlete. feel like absolutely. yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Makes you weigh more juice. There’s no doubt about that. Yeah, it’s exciting. It’s exciting. And you just, again, if you know somebody put the time into it, then you know that you’ve got to put equal time into it with care and consideration as well too. It makes the biggest difference. Yeah. Well, you know, again, I’m very curious about your path, but I’m not going to break into that quite yet because that’s a big topic and I really want to spend our time on that.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely.
Connor Agnew:
The one other thing I’m curious about, what were those very important lessons that you learned? Like you spoke about recruiting GAs or going out to bail or central Arkansas. What were some of the things that you picked up on that you felt really kind of transformed your career?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, was one of the very first ones was from Coach Fodio at Central Arkansas was, hey, you cannot be, if you want to get the most of being a strength coach, you can’t be in both worlds. And that was something because we had never had a full-time strength conditioning coach who wasn’t an assistant with football, who like my first three years, was a co-special teams coordinator, director of football operations, director of football facilities, and then head strength coach for football.
That’s what I did all those and he’s like, hey, you can’t live in both worlds. If you want to be the best strength coach you can be, you have to be a strength coach 24 seven. You can’t be learning how to coach. You can learn things like that to help you as a strength coach, but you can’t live in both worlds. So that I would say is probably one of the biggest things first that he taught me. And then with, with coach coach roof at Baylor, was just making sure I understood, you know, it’s not just about one to two years.
It’s about making sure that you set the standards for who you’re bringing in, what your GA’s responsibilities are, because you can’t flip it year in and year out, because then your program’s not going to have a direction.
Connor Agnew:
And so it’s the same standards for the athletes and the players.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. So I didn’t want to break into that one quite yet. But so I kind of for my athletes and for my coaches, I kind of use, I made this acronym up. I stole part of it from my head football coach here, Todd Knight, but you know, details, effort, finish and intent, what we call defy, you know, attention to all the details, relentless effort, finishing empty, and then intent with everything you do, you know, being able to talk about that with your athletes, it’s very apparent. But then with your coaches, hey, are you leaving the weight room better than you found it? Or are you tired at end of the day and leaving it a mess?
Connor Agnew:
Hehehe
Dakota Flash Wilson:
know, relentless effort. Are you making sure that you’re putting as much arm care into this sport that’s your auxiliary as you are into your full-time coach or your full-time sport? You’re finishing empty. Are you going to start every group the way you finished your very last group when it comes to your body demeanor, your effort answering kids and not being like, Hey, I’ve already said what the lift was for the 14th time today. Don’t ask me the sets and reps again, but how are you going to finish the day off right? And then intent, what are you doing outside of here to make sure you’re becoming a better coach in everything you do?
Connor Agnew:
Hmm.
Connor Agnew:
I think those are just such huge lessons and I certainly want to dive into each one, but we’ll go back to the big topic first and then it’ll trickle down from there. I know we can make it work. So when you are doing all these jobs, director of operations, director of facilities and actually being a strength coach, what was the way that you were able to convince your coaches or convince your school that it’s time to have a full-time strength coach and have a full-time strength and conditioning department?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, I couldn’t have done it without Todd Knight, our head football coach, I mean, it was one of those like I’m under his contract. And the way it kind of started was the head baseball coach came to him and me and said, hey, I see what y’all are doing in the weight room. I was technically because I was NCAA compliance. I was the strength coach for all sports. So if someone had a question, they’d reach out like women’s soccer would call me and I’d go teach the clean for a day or two.
know, volleyball would call me and we’d talk through some things, basketball, you know, things like that would go on and baseball would come and sit down in clinic and like, Hey, what would a program look like for us? And I’d put together a seven or eight week program and say, Hey, this is what I would do if I was in your shoes. I don’t know what all you’re doing at practice. I’ve, know, we haven’t sat down and talk about your goals, but like, this is a general outline of what I would do. And he’s like, I want to hire you as my strength coach. So out of his raised funds, Luke Howard, our head baseball coach here at WSDOT, he said, Hey, I’d love for you to join our program.
and become our strength coach. And then they paid me a stipend out of their raised funds to pull me as their head baseball coach, along with my assistant football duties. So then, you know, that was 2021, I think. And then in 2020, no, it was 2022. And then in 2023, women’s soccer, women’s tennis, softball, all these other sports a year before I actually got it going, called me and said, hey, we really, really want to get the ball rolling and work with you.
So can we do this and we’ll pay you out of our raised funds or our stipend? And at that point, it kind of leaned on our athletic department where our AD, Coach Sharp, was like, I mean, you’re already working with seven of our 14 head coaches. So let’s go ahead and build a position for you in a department where you can work with everybody because you’re already working with seven out of 14 head coaches to help their teams. And we can all see the improvements that we’re making with guided strength conditioning practices.
Connor Agnew:
You know, one of the things I really like about that is is rare for athletic departments to, in my opinion, not take the shortcut way. And it would be easy for them to just say, hey, you know, he’s already getting paid out of the raise funds from each sport, you know, and we’ve got somebody who can still run a lot of the positions for football as well, too. This is a home run for us because we don’t have to worry about hiring all these new jobs and everything like that. And so I think that’s a testament to your school. And what they understand is important about winning, which is obviously having
people be able to do what they truly want to do and what they’re passionate about within the department.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, and it couldn’t have got done without Coach Sharp and our president, Ben Sells, being able to have that support from them that we do need to take this step forward because in our conference, we’re Oklahoma and Arkansas for the Great American Conference. Almost every single school in Oklahoma has a strength conditioning coach working with all their teams. In Arkansas, it’s about 50-50. So it’s one of those where if we want to continue to take the steps forward, we are. In some of the sports I was working with, it’s like, hey, let’s put us in there with everybody.
Connor Agnew:
And obviously it’s led to some success for you, is that right?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
It is, I mean, I could be wrong on paper. think this might be the most successful. I know it was in the fall for sure, the most successful fall we’d had in all of our athletics. I don’t remember if it was last 20 or 30 years or whenever it was, but women’s soccer, football, cross country, now swim, swim and dive, men’s tennis just solidified. So mean, we’re at six or seven conference championships right now.
Connor Agnew:
Dude, that’s huge. That’s incredible. Congratulations. Seriously, that’s awesome.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Yes, sir. Absolutely, man. I couldn’t have done it without our administration and my coaches who’ve been working on the floor with me, Aaron Williams, Matthew Rippey and Comontree McKnight.
Connor Agnew:
Wow, man. Well, take me through this, right? It’s day one. You get hired as the first full-time strength and conditioning coach. You know that you have to set a direction for the department. What are the thoughts going through your head?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, had the thoughts going through the head were how, where do I go? How do I start? You know, things like that. But, know, luckily it’d been, you know, we’d kind of had it in talks for a couple years where we were kind of moving in this direction. So, I mean, I had already reached out to those guys I’d mentioned earlier and said, Hey, how do you, give me some pointers. Where are we going? What do you do? What makes your successful strength conditioning program work that I can take these things here and apply them to our model? You know, cause that’s the thing I think whether it’s
Connor Agnew:
Hehehehe
Dakota Flash Wilson:
an administrative model when it comes to your department, a training program, all those kinds of things. know, the old adage is like, there’s a thousand ways to skin a cat. can steal Alabama’s workout program and put it in your high school and it’ll work great, but it doesn’t. You have to make sure you realize, okay, hey, central Arkansas, Baylor, North Texas, whoever it is has a great model. But if you just try and copy and paste without taking into account the different sports, the different.
unique things because I mean, that’s one of the things here and I’ll say it and I’ll say it a great way. Our sport coaches are very selfish in a good way. They want their teams to be successful. You know, before my position, had we still have four separate weight rooms on our campus. So, you know, football has one that shared with football and baseball, excuse me, soccer has one in their indoor facility that’s shared by both soccer’s and cross country. Then we had one that basketball had put together during COVID and then one that volleyball had put together after COVID.
So we had these rooms that were all built by sport coaches where, yeah, they were built with a weight room expertise guy who came in and said, hey, this is what you need. And it’s one of those where it’s like, yeah, that’s a great weight room for a basketball team. But how can I get 40 to 50 wrestlers through three racks? Some things like that where now we’ve been able to make some upgrades and do some changes and some configuring to those rooms.
where now it doesn’t matter how many, it matters how many, but now we can get full teams in there instead of having to compartmentalize and saying, hey, we’re going to have three or four different teams lifting across multiple time slots because of the fact we didn’t have enough space.
Connor Agnew:
Hmm So that was one of your main points of focus was actually just figuring out the just straight-up logistics of how to lift
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. So, you know, that kind of ties back to the operate or the facilities job I had, you know, I was in charge of our indoor facility for eight different outdoor sports that shared our indoor facility, making sure the schedule lined up where everybody could get in, use their times, those kinds of things. And it’s one of those things, if I hadn’t had that experience, it probably would have been a lot tougher first year. But being able to say, hey, here’s how the schedule needs to work already having those relationships built with head coaches where I understood.
what their habits were with practice, when they wanted to, based on our class schedules, our labs, the things every strength coach in America deals with when it comes to class times, but trying to get all those things configured where wait times weren’t really an issue for us this first year, luckily, all the head coaches were like, this is perfect. Yeah, it doesn’t impact our practice times at all like I thought it would. Great.
Connor Agnew:
Now I’m gonna make every strength coach here jealous. I promise you that I don’t have to schedule our lifting times. They just tell me the schedule. But I do remember the scheduling times. I do remember it can get incredibly difficult. There’s a lot of different things you have to consider. And then all of a doctors appointments and small things like that get thrown in there and then you’re really getting thrown for a loop. Obviously the logistic side is one big piece of it. What were the other points of focus for you?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, one of the biggest ones was building buy-in with coaches and athletes. know, obviously we talk about all the time, you know, like, hey, you bring in a new class of freshmen, you bring in transfers, whatever. You don’t know what their previous history is with strength conditioning. Do they like it? Do they hate it? You know, getting that buy-in for your program. But then I only had three head coaches on campus prior to possibly working with me, like baseball and those kinds of sports who’d picked me up. But we only had three head coaches on campus who’d ever had a strength conditioning coach before.
out of 14 head coaches. So, and some of them might have had them like 20 or 30 years ago when they were like an assistant somewhere and things like that, but they hadn’t been a head coach with that as part of their program. It’d always been, hey, I’m going to hire this assistant. And they went to a great school that had a strength program and then copy and paste, bring that over here. So we’re doing this model that they brought in from this college or where they played at or what the style that they trained under. So it was one of those were like for head coaches.
you know, there was trying to create buy-in with them that, hey, this is the right direction we need to move in. I realize, yeah, I didn’t play college basketball. There’s a reason for that. I know it. But at the same time, we’re making sure that everything we do in the weight room is to help make your team better. We’re not just going to do the football lift and just copy and paste it over here and say, hey, we’re doing a football lift today. So making sure we created that buy-in where sport coaches, all of our head coaches and assistants felt like they were getting the most out of the weight room still.
That was the biggest thing for us. you know, head coaches, like I said, selfish in a good way. They care about their teams. They want to be successful. They didn’t want to take a step back through the weight room.
Connor Agnew:
And so one of the ways was by making sure that they had sport specific training was to get the coaches to buy in
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. And that’s, that was probably the next thing we kind of talked about the figuring out the systems for the weight rooms. But the next one was trying to make sure everyone was scientifically founded strength conditioning programs for them, because we had, and it’s one of those things where, yeah, you, you, this, this program won a lot of conference championships in the eighties and you were able to get their manual, but a lot’s changed since 1984. So trying to get some of those old habits and build.
programs for them that they felt like, well, this isn’t a swim program. This has this and this in it. I don’t see us doing any kind of swim specific exercises. It’s like, well, how much are you in the water right now? Well, we’re in the water for multiple hours. Then we probably don’t need to do a swim based movement on dry land when we can correct some of the overuse and overuse injuries that pop up because you’re in the water for hour after hour in season. know, trying to flip that script on them a little bit.
That was kind of the one of the biggest things that was a priority for me because I had seen some of our training, you know, for some of our teams. And it’s one of those like, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to bash any of our coaches, but it was just not their area of expertise. They’re great sport coaches and they’re great at their sport. And what they’re bringing to the weight room was the best they had. You know, they were going outside, researching, clinic-ing with people, trying to make sure that they were prepped and ready to go and bring the best things back to their programs. But it was one of those things where
You know, if you go look on social media, things like that, there’s a thousand things that you don’t want to put into a weight room that are getting posted constantly. And that’s what their kids are seeing. And, Hey coach, I saw this awesome drill by so-and-so’s trainer. I think this would be great for us in weights today. yeah. I see how that applies to our sport. Let’s go ahead and implement it. And that became like a staple lift for them. And it’s, it’s one of those things where there’s a time and a place for some of those, you know, super sports specific lifts. There’s a time and a place with
an advanced athlete, but it was going back to the head coaches and trying to say, hey, push, pull, squat, hinge, carry, sprint, jump, core. We’re going to do these eight things that we’re going to do them in an elite level. You know, once we get these things down, yeah, we’ll do some some volleyball specific, softball specific, whatever sports it is. We’ll do these specific things. But if we don’t have any kind of a foundation, all we’re doing is asking for us to get hurt. So let’s go ahead and say we’re going to go ahead and take a step forward.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
by making sure we’re elite at these things and build a great GPP base and then be able to move in the next position. That was probably the biggest one because I knew head coaches and creating buy-in while saying like, hey, I know that y’all went in the weight room and we’re doing these sports specific workouts that you’ve devised and pulling those out and then putting a whole new framework in place. I knew that was gonna be one of those tough things while building buy-in.
Connor Agnew:
Hey, I think you’d probably just made one of the best arguments for why straining condition coaches should exist that I’ve heard, right? I mean, so fantastic work there, but it really makes you think, right? And what my mind goes to is kind of that mental toughness training, right? Where the water gets really muddy because if a head coach is running the conditioning, you know, there’s always going to be an aspect of this has to be as tough as possible. And there’s not really a consideration of D loads or lighter days or things that really help actualize performance. And so.
I think it becomes really, really interesting when you see like, and I can’t blame the head coach either. Cause like you said, selfishly, I’d want to make sure that everything was tough, right? But if I don’t have the base knowledge of the human body and understanding that if we redline these guys all the time, we’re probably gonna get at a point where they’re all getting injured or we risk injury or performance is going to decrease at the very least. And so again, I would try to make everything tough. And you know, it’s funny, like you see the workouts that people post and I see the workouts that I originally wrote.
when I first was getting interested in lifting, right? And sending workouts to my buddies. I mean, I’m talking five by 12 on back squat and things like that, right? Because it was just like, well, it’s a tough thing to do. I mean, you’re just getting better. The more refs equals better work, because we’re doing more work than everybody else. It’s like, obviously you can see, and when you don’t have that education base, how those things can occur. So again, I appreciate your argument, because I think it certainly helps out with understanding why coaches and strength coaches specifically need to have separate realms.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah. And I think it’s one of those, like one of the points you just made is one of those points that sport coaches deal with a whole lot is a lot of them come from an exercise science, kinesiology background. So they understand the basis of the human body, but you know, it’s one of those at the same time, it’s a two-sided coin. There’s a difference between what is applicable based on only research based training principles coming from a book. And then also,
what you’re doing daily on top of that. can’t do, hey, this is straight out of the NSCA or CSCCA book and then say, all right, we’re just going to do this exact training program and then not account for all the time and practice and then individual work and all those things and say, yeah, we can follow this program exactly how it is in the book and say it’s perfect without taking into account in season, off season, the different times of training volume that they’re doing.
within their sport and not try and put those two worlds together. And if you’re trying to do both those worlds at the same time, you’re going to drive yourself crazy because you’re going to have to be an information overload trying to make sure you’re up to date on the strength conditioning side. And then you’re also up to date on the sport specific side and trying to make those two things meld where they’re not, you’re interweaving them and those kinds of things, which is what I saw a lot of.
Connor Agnew:
You know that you actually mentioned, it’s like one of my concerns with PRILIPIN’s chart and just, you know, living or dying by that, right? Is that, that is a lot of it is based off of Olympic lifting, right? Where the sport is the actual lifting. And so, you know, it’s funny because I sometimes almost have to defend a lower volume of what we do or lower intensity. And I’m a big, you know, I love the starting strength system where it’s just three by five on squat, three by five bench press, then one by five deadlift, and then mixing on the opposite days, you know, some of our more sports specific stuff for our mobility, whatever it may be, right?
And it’s funny, people get so mad when you do something simple, like they’re like, it has to be as intricate as possible. Like, what are you thinking? Like we have to be doing that, you know, the triphasic 24 seven and all these things. It’s like, you really don’t. And a lot of the research is based off of Olympic lifters. It’s based off of people whose sport is not separate from the actual training modalities. And so it makes a big difference. You have to consider the sport.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah, and then that’s one of the things, know, we came, you when I got here, like our football conditioning program and speed work were one in one tied together. You know, that old school, you know, and it was great. It was a great thing for us, but now it’s one of those, okay, for us to take the next step with our speed and explosion and those kinds of key pieces. We want to make sure we’re upgrading and growing in. All right, we got to do something different with our speed work. can’t do…
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, yep, yep.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
a 10, 20 yard sprint and then follow it up with a 30 second break and then go sprint again if we want to get the max out of it. Okay. You know, it depends on what head coach you work for. It’s kind of, kind of one of those things for me when it’s that buy in with coaches. If you just flip them from saying, okay, hey, we’re going to go run 20 yard sprints, which the way we do it is you run a 20 yard sprint. You take a two minute break to recover and re rest. I know a lot of people that’s their standard. So now I stole this from less Spelman, you know, from, from his
I don’t know if it’s a podcast or email. read it in but okay you go run your 20-yard sprint now in between let’s go hit mobility drills Let’s go core. Let’s go a sprint mechanic drill head coach season jog 10 feet to the wall. They go wall drill They do a 30 second hole 30 second hold. Okay. Hey 30 second plank Now 30 second walk back, you know, that one’s a little bit maybe extreme for some people when it comes to recovery and rest But when you’re building buy-in from a coach who wants to run
20 yard sprints with 20 seconds in between to build speed. You know, it’s one of those where you got to kind of find that, that even ground where you and the head coach can agree on. Because if you try and just go in there and completely change it up and you take all that power from some head coaches, they’re really going to have a problem with it. And you’re shooting yourself in the foot where if you go in and you have a systematic approach where it’s like, Hey coach, we’re doing this. And then after that six week phase, it’s like, man, this is
These are the fastest 10 yard splits or this is the highest vertical jump we’ve had on our team. It’s like, okay, needle moved up. Now you go from having to do three extra exercises during your rest break to be able to do two and you can get them to walk. And the sport coach isn’t, hey, my team’s walking around. This isn’t what I want to see. You you’re able to kind of make those changes as you kind of build that buy-in and get that trust back from that coach.
Connor Agnew:
I love that perspective too, because I do think a lot of times, strength and conditioning coaches can kind of go with the all or none principle when it comes to their program, where it’s like, there’s almost no compromise, you know, and they have a lot of frustration. you know, if you look at the true, like I think starting strength is a good example, you look at the true starting strength system, you know, it is three by five, you rest in between the squats, you know, you take your time to recover. You know, again, I’d probably would not want my head coach walking in the weight room and seeing a bunch of dudes just sitting.
in between, right, and then waiting for three to four minutes between each set. And so I know probably more mobility exercises than most people could possibly think of because that’s exactly where we get our main work in. But it helps the guys feel better. It helps them buy in as well too. And so it’s small changes and small tweaks that you can reach a compromise that really make the biggest difference.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. And then I’d probably say the next biggest point for me kind of getting the department off the ground was there was a, is going to sound bad probably, but I was, I had that football coach stigma. I was just the football coach, you know? So like our baseball team, like as soon as I took over their program in 2022, you know, like it took about three, four weeks until they were like, man, I’m crushing the ball. My VLO is going up. Pitchers are like, man, I’m.
Like I feel the best I ever have. My upper back’s not sore all the time. My low back doesn’t hurt as much from the core we’re doing. I thought we were going come in here and just do a football work and I just feel crushed. It’s like, no, man, this is a baseball training program. This is going to help you. women’s soccer, you we started working with them. And for one of those, it kind of gets back to like that culture the head coach wants. You know, my culture with football and baseball.
You know, our soccer coach, our women’s soccer coach, Kevin, he calls it militaristic. You know, we’re on the whistle, attack the weight room, moving around with urgency, those kinds of things. Our women’s soccer team is a little bit more probably what you would see in a, I call it like the D1, that’s the big gym we have in Little Rock when it’s the private sector. You know, like you complete a lift, you’re able to deep breath, you know, no phones in there, anything like that. But you can sit down, gather yourself before you go to your next heavy squat.
you know, those kind of things. And the head coach, he’s a great, you know, he’s great in there. He’s in almost every single training session we have. So I’m able to, you know, assess with him and talk to him about what’s going on with his team. But it’s just that complete different culture, but we’re getting great work in. I mean, the last two years I’ve worked with them, they’ve had two conference championships. So it’s not one of those things where it also proves you don’t have to be always a certain boom, boom, boom, boom, in the weight room. If it’s a complete flip of what they’re doing to practice. Cause then it’s just a culture shock and
I don’t want to have to go to the weight room today because the coach is just going to yell and scream. And it’s just one of those things where it’s been building that buy-in that, hey, I’m not just a football-style coach. I’m in here to help you get better for your sport. And that was one of those big things for me where if the athletes just think I’m going to come in there and bark and yell and scream and holler at them, I’m never going to be able to create a relationship where they can trust me.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
and then be able to say, coach today, my shoulder’s killing me. I don’t need to bench press. Okay, Hey, let’s talk about it. Let’s see what you need to do. Cause I don’t ever want to put athlete in a position, excuse me, that they think, I can’t tell coast. My shoulders bugging me. just trying to make sure like from the start working with all of our teams, Hey, it’s open line of communication. And then
Like I tried to go to two to three practices for each of the sports to make sure I understood. And then like with my GAs, like when they got here, was, Hey, I want you to go watch your sports, go see what they look like at practice. And like, I don’t want them to mimic. want our coaches to have their own kind of style in the weight room and how they coach and those kinds of things. But I wanted them to see, Hey, pick up some of the terms like football. Hey, everybody bring it up. Basketball for us is, Hey, everybody touch it up, touch it up. Things like that. Where if you say,
you know, bring it up and it’s six AM lift for a sport. And they’re like, what? And you’re speaking a foreign language. It’s just gets back to those norms and that, I don’t want to say psychoanalysis, but it’s that side of it where you’re really trying to say, hey, I’m a part of your family. I’m a part of your team. I’m not somebody who just comes in and throws something random at you. You know, we’re all in this together. And that’s what I tried to get across in this first year as well.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, the common language piece to me is like one of the lowest hanging fruits that are just so important because it’s something where you can just change your vernacular just a little bit and like you said it obviously shows them that you care and you understand enough about their culture that you’re willing to adopt it yourself.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely,
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, well, you you spoke about some of the challenges that, you know, you might foresee, right? You might say, okay, I can understand these things might pop up when first started an apartment. Was there anything that was completely unexpected that surprised you and took you off guard that was very challenging first start now?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
It was one of those that wasn’t unexpected, but I knew there was going to be a bump in the road. We had a great fall and we’ve had a great spring so far. But when those bumps in the road happened and there wasn’t as much success as some coaches were hoping for based on just sports. Somebody had an injury, last second turnover in a game and lost a game, those kind of things. And it’s part of sports and it happens, but trying to build.
that buy-in whenever someone’s going into a tough season is tough. I mean, we all know that, like trying to make sure you’re establishing that culture and the culture the head coach wants. If the coach is already struggling or having issues with it on his end of the floor of the court or whatever at practice, you’ve got to double down and make sure you’re on the same page as them. And it’s one of those where that’s what I learned probably in this first year. Like if you get off kilter just a little bit when those things are going on,
just because you’re seeing problems and you’re trying to address them in the weight room. If you’re not trying to address them in the same way and speak in the same language, because like I said, I try to get our coaches and myself, we try and go to practices consistently around our schedule to make sure we have a feel for not just how we are in the weight room, because that’s the thing. These athletes aren’t here to lift weights. So you’re going to have some that just absolutely love the weight room, they’re gung ho and they’re excited to come see you. And some of them,
You’re trying to help create that love for the weight room and understanding that it’s a big part of playing college athletics for them. You know, cause in the, in the state of Arkansas, I’ll say this, you know, we’ve, we’ve come a long way since I was in high school, but you know, we still as a state, think I was talking to Price Holmes, our national high school strength conditioning association director. I think we only have four or five full-time positions in the state that are not tied to a sport coach role as well.
You know, so it’s one of those like we recruit a lot of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas and a lot of Arkansas kids come to us. So this is that kind of like what I talked about with my experience here when I first got here, that’s what they’ve had. And if they’re a football athlete, yeah, they were probably in the weight room, but if they were another sport, they might’ve never even picked up a bar bill until, until you get them. They might’ve only done dumbbell, med ball, core circuits the entire time they were in high school. So
Dakota Flash Wilson:
trying to make sure that you’re helping build relationships and love for the weight room the right way with your athletes. And then when hard times pop up and struggle, it rises in season or off season, just making sure you’re on the same page with the head coach.
Connor Agnew:
It is it’s amazing to me how many problems winning can solve and how many problems are created by losing it’s amazing
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. And then the other thing I’d say is this, because it was a major culture flip, like going back to a little bit to the weight rooms. You don’t want to hinder those athletes from being able to come in and get extra work and do things to make sure that they’re getting recovery work in, doing some extra bodybuilding stuff on their own if they want to, whatever. You want them to come in and do that extra work. Our head coaches, as a sport coach, obviously recruiting, practice.
administrative roles that you have within yours. All those kind of things are on their plate. And then you’ve got a kid, hey coach, I want to go get a lift in. Okay, hey, here’s my keys, go to the weight room. That was what we had going on. And we had equipment missing, mirrors getting broke, stuff. It was just colossal. So it was one of those where it was a culture flip for the athletes, not only with like how they were training, but like their time outside of training that they wanted to use as well.
So like having to set up like, hey, you have to schedule with your coach if you’re going to come in and do extra work so we can get somebody there or come into like the open hours we have set for you to come take advantage of instead of just, hey, I’m getting my coach’s key. I’m going go lift them on whenever the heck I want to. And that was a culture flip for those seniors and juniors who that’s what they’ve done for four years. That’s not going to be a problem in two, three years from now. We might have somebody hard-headed who just kind of wants to bend and break the rules a little bit. That’s part of life.
You know, this first year, mean, there was, there was some, my softball girls, showed me some messages on Yik Yak where they were trying to get after me as the, El Presidente of the weight room or something.
Connor Agnew:
Dude, I just, I don’t understand how people don’t see the massive liability behind everybody having a key to the weight room. It’s a huge liability. It’s incredible.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah.
It is. it was, mean, like, I didn’t even have a key. It was funny. I didn’t, got that job and I got the job in June of 2024. I didn’t have a key. So I was borrowing like our, our ADs key to be able to get in there, coach sharp. And like, I saw just like athletes being able to come and go. And I was like, where the heck are y’all getting the key from? It’s like, Oh, coach’s office is open. I’m like, Oh,
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I’m the director. I don’t even have a key. You guys are figuring it out.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Right. So, well, at least now know where that key is.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s I don’t know. I too have been criticized for being excessively in their eyes, you know, in control of the weight room. But at the same time, like like you said, once equipment goes missing, once mirrors are broken, once somebody gets hurt, when I’m not there, it becomes my problem, not their problem. Yeah. 100 percent.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. It’s your name on it, not theirs. So when it comes to those kind of things, you’re the first one in line for the firing squad if something happens.
Connor Agnew:
yeah, absolutely. And trust me, they’re coming straight for you. They don’t care about who it was or whatever it was, what was going on. So, well, I’m a big fan of reflection. I always think it’s really important to look back at the end of a year and just understand what went right, what went wrong, you know, and understanding how can I grow and get better in year two. Would there be anything that you would change in your first year or would you do everything the exact same?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, the first thing that kind of came to mind for me, I forget where I read it from, but I read somebody else article or a podcast and they were talking about like how they started a department. They did a staggered approach where they did, let’s say they had 15 sports. went five, five, five over three years to take over everybody. That way there was like a progression into it and things that way you didn’t have as much backlash and so much change. suddenly for some coaches, but
thought about that, but man, I think it really was the best decision for me to just make sure we took over and started working with every single sport on campus. Because I think we would have just had lingering issues. Because like I said, like with the weight rooms, if coaches still had keys and this team was in, but this team couldn’t, that was one of the things, you when you asked me that question, that’s the first thing that popped in my head, but I probably wouldn’t change that. And then the other thing is just making sure, you know, on
I’m in the GA process and recruitment, you know, making sure that who I’m bringing in for those positions is someone who wants to be number one, a strength conditioning coach long-term, making sure that they understand what that role looks like. Not just saying, hey, I love to lift. Hey, I love to do this. Hey, I love to do that. But man, I love growing as a coach. I love actually pick, not just scrolling through social media, but going and picking up a book. I love.
networking with other coaches, bouncing ideas off other coaches, being able to find time in my day that’s busy to better myself, to be a better strength conditioning coach. And then being able to find those people who are hungry for that extra work where you’re like, Hey, I’m about to build this. I’ve got, I’ve got a, an outfielder with some, knee tendonitis for baseball. Hey, coach, let me get it. I’ll build the ten nice kind of rehab RTP plan for him. Let me see it. Let me do it. And then you just look over it for me and let’s do it.
That’s the things that I’m looking for in GA is when I’m hiring them is not just the ones that are, obviously you got to hire great, good people. But finding the ones that are hungry and then the ones that are wanting to be strength coaches long term.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I’ve had to learn that lesson multiple times over the years, I’d say, especially with interns and you know how I treat internships is I only take one or two people per semester. And they work exclusively with me or with women’s basketball with our other strength and conditioning coach, Zach Hicks. And I just make it that way because I want them to really understand what it’s like to be a strength coach, especially if you’re specializing in one sport. And I think.
what I’ve learned is that I have to ask this question or I have to kind of frame the interview in this way, which is something that I stole from an Instagram story, which I stole from another coach. I can’t remember his name and I would love to give him credit, right? But it was like, when you interview interns, like you’re trying to convince them not to do it. You’re trying to convince them like, here’s all the bad stuff. And if that stuff all sounds okay, then I’ll hire you. But you got to hear all the bad stuff first and tell me that you can actually put up with that.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely. And that’s one of those things where, like I kind of talked about at the start, I had that untraditional role. I never really had to do a, I never went through an internship or a GA. I went, I got done playing, moved right into a student coaching role. was like, yeah, why wouldn’t I just come down for the extra hour and a half and I hit all the groups instead of just one? I was already in the locker room 30 minutes before my lift. Just be here for all the groups and roll through them all in the afternoon.
Then I helped the coach set up or break down and learn. And then like, you you have that debrief that, you know, is not, you don’t know as a debrief as a student intern or as an undergrad, but the coach is like, Hey, what do think about this? How’d he do today? Those kinds of things that I’m just, I think he’s just having a conversation with me. But then now looking back on it, I’m like, man, that was how much information were we just like me and coach Tibbitt’s me and coach Garrah, all those coaches who came before me that I was working with, how many of that?
Like, man, I learned so much just in passing conversations that now I’m like, I got to make sure I have these conversations to my staff, whether they know it or not, but just making sure that they’re understanding what they’re seeing and making them reflect back on it within that 30 to 40 minute window before they forget about it.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, because I remember having a very short term memory as an intern or a GA. I remember, you know, just kind of rolled through the day and sometimes you’d be exhausted at the end of the day and not really reflected. So again, that’s why I’ve had to learn to love reflection. Like I mentioned, are there any specific questions that you ask or anything that you really, really look for in the interviews now?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Man, the two big questions, I had them last year and I still have them. The first one is…
The first one is what mistakes did you make whenever you first started to coach someone? Whether, you know, I’m interviewing a lot of guys and girls that are just now finishing up, you know, like the way it’s worked out. I’ve had several softball athletes the last couple of years that I’ve interviewed and I’m like, okay. So like you’ve done lessons, you’ve done all this stuff, but when you’ve coached someone, kind of walk me through what it is you’re looking for, or I’m sorry, not what you’re looking for, but a mistake you made.
that was a problem. You put groups to me in a group and then they’re standing around. You can’t get the group back on track or give me a mistake that you made in. And it’s like, man, I’m never making that mistake again ever. And like having them do that and give me that mistake. And usually it’s one of those where I can kind of tell cause like they give me the like the, yeah, coach, this happened in it. And I learned like, I can’t do this or else the group just goes to crap. Or you get a, a, a, a, a,
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
And you can kind of tell who actually reflects on their own coaching and who doesn’t. And then the flip side of that is like a challenge within your team. know, like I try, obviously they’re trying to recruit former student athletes, whether it’s high school or college, like we all do. But whenever you’re trying to talk to them, it’s like, Hey, when was the time that your team had a challenge? They had a problem. Something else was going on. I probably stole these both from somebody. I can’t remember who I stole it from, but if I did, I’m giving credit to them now. But
you know, whenever you were going through that challenge on your team, how did you correct it? Or how did you manage that problem without having to go to the next level and get a coach involved? Cause that’s another one where it’s kind of double sided, where you can kind of see their leadership roles. And then at the same time, it’s like, how much are they kind of, kind of hide from their, their head coach or be willing to admit that they hid from their head coach when they’re, they’re talking to someone else about it. That way you can kind of see both sides of it.
Connor Agnew:
That’s a sneaky one. love that one. Cause you know, you might find out they’re willing to hide a little bit too much and then you’re worried about what they’d be hiding from you. So adversity is a big piece of what you want to find out from these GAs.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
yeah, I want to make sure that they’re able to problem solve and move on their own, know, move with urgency and take care of their business. Cause like I said, we have four separate weight rooms on campus. So our days, you know, we, we staff meet, we meet, we do debriefs, those kinds of things. Just, just part of it, like everyone does, but I might not see them for two to three days at a time, depending on their workout schedule. if, excuse me, if I don’t see them, I want to make sure that I can trust them in a room.
And if something happens, number one, they know our emergency action plan. Number two, if they don’t need the emergency action plan, are they going to do something that is a good follow through with our protocols and what we talk about? Cause we can sit there and make as many protocols and emergency action plans as we want. But what do we do when something happens? It’s outside the protocols. Do we panic and freak out and just throw it all to the wind? Or are we actually number one?
contacting the athletic trainer. Number two, contacting me so I can make sure I’m there and take care of anything else. That way they can focus on anything happening with the athlete. Not like medical emergencies per se, but like, hey, somebody hit a bar, a glass with a barbell, hit a mirror. And now you got an iceberg sized chunk about to fall out of the mirror. Do we ignore it or do we actually go in and say, okay, hey, this happened. Hey, tape it off, get everybody away from it. Get the vacuum out. We’ve called coach Flash. He’s going to get this, da da da da da, those kinds of things.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I love that process because I think you do, like you said, have to have a lot of trust in those GAs, right? And it’s a big role quickly for people who may not have as much experience.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, man. And it’s one of those where you get to cut your teeth and you really do get to learn if you love the profession or not.
Connor Agnew:
Yep. man, I found out through a couple of guys, that’s where the lessons were learned about, know, if they, I had to really explain to them, this is the bad stuff about the profession. Can you handle it? Right? Because a lot of times in my first original interviews was just like, you know, yeah, there’s some negatives to it, but I’m trying to inspire people and get them into strength and conditioning instead of finding out that I really just needed to have the people who were dedicated to it no matter what. Yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely.
Connor Agnew:
Well, Dakota man, I really appreciate you coming on brother. I had a really good time hearing your story and then being able to hear about your development of the program. This stuff is so exciting for me. If any of our listeners want to follow you on social media, what would be the best way to do that?
Dakota Flash Wilson:
You can follow me on X at coach D flash. I’m sorry coach underscore D flash and then on Instagram at man I’m embarrassed for this one D flashiest coach with a underscore in between D flashiest.
Connor Agnew:
That’s awesome. No, I like that a lot. Where’d that nickname come from Flash? That’s awesome, dude. That’s awesome. I love it.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
No, man, that’s my middle name, my legal. So no, my dad passed away about a month and a half ago. So he actually, well, I appreciate it, man. was, you know, make the positive out of it, but he’s the one who named me. He originally wanted to go with Mopar Dakota Wilson. He was a big drag racing car guy back in the 80s and 90s, rebuilding old Dodge street cars into drag cars, stuff like that.
Connor Agnew:
I’m sorry to hear that.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Mom said, no, you can’t name him that. So he’s like, all right, I’m gonna name him D Flash. So like that way on his field was, hey, on a sports jersey whenever he goes pro, we put D Flash on it. He’s the only one out there on the field. So it’s one of those things for me now, especially in the last two, three months, it’s been something I own with a lot more, even more pride.
Connor Agnew:
Hehehehehe
Connor Agnew:
That’s awesome, man. That’s so cool. I love to hear that. Well, thank you, Dakota. I really appreciate you coming on.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, man. I really appreciate you do a phenomenal job and I hope that what I spoke on today helps out somebody who’s going through what we’re going through right now and continue to grow the profession.
Connor Agnew:
That’s exactly why I wanted to have you up because I knew it would.
Dakota Flash Wilson:
Absolutely, man. Thank you so much.
Connor Agnew:
Thank you.
