The Strength Behind the Game: A Conversation with Anthony Cockrill
In the latest episode of our podcast, Connor Agnew sits down with Anthony Cockrill, Director of Volleyball Sports Performance at SMU, for a deep dive into the evolving world of strength coaching and athlete development.
Anthony shares his career journey, from breaking into the industry to leading a top-tier volleyball strength program. They explore the impact of social media in coaching, the importance of mentorship, and how fear of criticism often holds coaches back from sharing their work online.
Key Takeaways from the Conversation:
• Persistence is everything. Anthony’s journey highlights the power of staying the course in a competitive industry.
•Social media is a game-changer. It provides visibility, engagement, and career opportunities—but only if coaches embrace it.
•Fear of judgment stifles growth. Many coaches hesitate to share their methods publicly, yet engagement (even negative) can boost visibility.
•Mentorship is invaluable. Learning from others accelerates growth and opens doors in the profession.
•Strength coaching is evolving. Social media is shaping the way coaches connect, educate, and build professional relationships.
•Confrontation breeds progress. Coaches must lean into tough conversations to drive improvement.
• Volleyball is on the rise. With growing popularity and professional opportunities, investing in strength training and nutrition is a strategic move for athlete success.
• A positive training environment matters. It fosters trust, development, and long-term performance gains.
•Nutrition is often overlooked but critical. Strength coaches must integrate nutrition strategies to optimize athlete performance.
Spotify • YouTube • Apple Podcast
Never Miss An Episode Join Our Newsletter
Connor Agnew:
What’s going on Samson strength coach collective listeners on today’s episode. We have Anthony Cockrell, director of volleyball sport performance at SMU. Anthony, so thank you so much for coming on, man.
Anthony Cockrill:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this one.
Connor Agnew:
Absolutely. I dude, I’ve been really been looking forward to it as well. Obviously I’ve been following you on social media, but then, look, I don’t know. can’t go one episode on this podcast without mentioning John Bloom, but, we’ve been able to, absolutely. We’ve been able to meet obviously through his zooms and I’ve just been, very appreciative of the opportunity to get to know you. So I’m excited to dive in even further.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, of course not.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah man, likewise.
Connor Agnew:
Well, let’s just get right into it. Can you just give me a background of your career and then what’s brought you to SMU?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yeah, think like most people, I did not play college athletics. I was not good enough, but I wanted to be involved in some capacity. So I my undergrad at Midwestern State University, small D2, North here in Wichita Falls, Texas. So during my senior year, I no idea what I wanted to do. I just wanted to be involved in sports. I had a good advisor, cutting guide me, like, hey, can go intern downstairs with Jake, our strength coach.
I like, sure, whatever. I have no idea what this entitled, but like I’ll go meet with them. And yeah, I got it set up. It started doing that August of my senior year. And like from day one, like we’re in the trenches coaching football and I have no idea what I’m doing. And it’s like D2. So you have one full-time strength coach and like two GAs and me coaching football, like two groups of football, offense, defense. And it was great. I absolutely loved the environment. There’s definitely the people made it. It was miserable.
5 a.m. to 5 p.m. that stereotypical kind of deal. But I loved it. So after that, I did an internship at TCU that summer. So I did one full year undergrad internship and then summer at TCU with Zach Deakin and that whole deal, which is also great. It was great to see the opposite ends of the spectrum from like D2 to high level Big 12 and like how those two things are contrasting and similar. And then from there, I was a GA at Tennessee Tech University.
Cookfield, Tennessee, which is awesome. My time at TCU definitely set me up to be successful somewhat as a GA and kind of get me to that spot anyways. So I worked with men’s basketball as a GA at a Division I level, which is absolutely insane. I should never have let that happen. But I’m grateful for that opportunity for sure. And then comes a point, like I’m finishing the spring, you know, and like we’re in a
very oversaturated field, right? Like there’s only so many jobs and like there’s so many people. So luckily enough, like I was going through like anybody like applying to every single thing. I didn’t get in a phone interview. I vividly remember only getting two interviews for like applying to hundreds of things and which is looking back is absolutely insane. But so knowing that I was like, okay, like what do got to do? I got to like go somewhere or like I feel like I can learn. Like obviously I’m not ready.
Anthony Cockrill:
gain some more experience and just like get people that I think are going to set me up, like three, five years down the road, like the way I want to be. so like social media started getting into it, like around this time, as far as like finding people online. And, I really had this, like, I really biased towards like at the time these, all these people were at Utah state, like Alan Bishop, Dave Schultz, Joey Burgess, that whole crew all at Utah state at the time. And they’re to post it on social media. And I really liked honestly the aesthetic of their training.
Like how their people were squatting and how just like technically sound everybody seemed to look from the outside looking in via their social media. I was like, man, they must be like, I want to know more for that. Like I want to do what that is essentially. I reached out to at the time Dave Scholes was at Texas Tech and Alan Bishop was at now University of Houston. And I was like, I basically I want to come intern for one at one of you essentially. I ended up going to Houston after my G.A. very like a part time like making like
$10,000 a year, nothing. But it was for the greater, like macro, three to five years. Where do I want to go? I felt like that was going to set me up in the best position. And it was great. It was the best decision I ever made. Just from a learning standpoint, I definitely walked the talk from everything you see from a social media standpoint. So Alan Bishop was there. Bree Brown was women’s basketball, now at the University of Miami. Jake Allen was in the same position I was on the men’s side. But he’s now in the private sector. He’s done stuff like the New York Mets.
It was just, I was so lucky to be at the right time, right place, and I learned a lifetime of information in 10 months. So from there, I don’t really come from a background of money from a family standpoint, so I could only survive that so long. And came to a point where I just physically couldn’t afford to do this anymore. So like, think I’m ready for the full time. So I ended up getting a full time job at my first at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, UMBC.
If anybody’s familiar, a long time ago, 2016, think, first ever 16 upset a one seed that’s at school. And it was great to the interesting thing is I got that job March 2019 and no March 2020, sorry, March 2020, like two days before COVID hits. Literally, I accepted that job. I left Houston the next day. I was at my parents and like.
Anthony Cockrill:
people are starting to like shut schools down and this kind of thing. I ended up getting on this hiring freeze. It was like worst case scenario. So my now fiance at the time was still at Tennessee Tech. And so I kind of was like, all I’m just gonna go like visit you during like ride this out a couple of days, you know? And then when I get to Tennessee Tech, that’s when they kicked them out of school. So, okay, okay, she’s from Cincinnati. We went to Cincinnati. You know, like, okay, I’ll just ride this out, you know, a couple of days and I’m off to Baltimore.
and ends up being till September. So we’re in Cincinnati together living with their parents from March till September during COVID. Great. The best thing that ever happened for our relationship probably. I remember we got jobs at like Kroger at the time. You like bagging people’s groceries, taking to their car because nobody would go in the store. We were doing that just like kill time. And yeah, September 2020, UMBC. It was great.
Brian Amento, he’s the director of strength and conditioning there and he’s great. Anytime anybody asks me about like look, like under the radar people, he’s so good at such like, obviously like a lower level. He does an excellent job. And for there, was like we were thugging it out. was me and him, the only two full time. And so we each had six teams. So that first year just grinding, like just training nonstop around the clock, which is great. Like most people need that experience.
And then we ended up hiring a new another position and kind of mitigated some of that. And then this position came open for the reason I went to Houston in the first place for like these opportunities to come up and like those connections to be made. So through Bri, like this SMU position, it came up. She was able to sign my name in here and here we are.
Connor Agnew:
Wow, that’s an incredible story. And I love hearing it, especially as a strength coach who came up at about the same time. I remember getting hired at Texas Tech during a hiring freeze as well too. And I mean, you had the Kurt Warner story path back in grocery, so now at SMU, I love it. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was the decision to understand that.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
there has to be a delayed gratification in your process. There has to be something that’ll set you up for the future. And something that isn’t addressed a ton within training conditioning is like, we come from different backgrounds. I was able to go to Tennessee and spend my time working for free for a year because my parents were able to support me. And like, yeah, I had to work on the side, like to do extra things. But at end of the day, I always had kind of had that safety net. And a lot of times I see strike coaches kind of not necessarily make that decision or where they’ll
Anthony Cockrill:
Hmm.
Connor Agnew:
entirely just give up on straightening and conditioning or they’ll take the first job that comes along and it’s like you said, know, D2, D3, where you have every single team and you get burnt out before you have an opportunity to really have a fulfilling career. Like what drove that decision? How did you come to that?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
I don’t know, truthfully. Maybe it’s just my personality, my environment growing up from my parents. Yeah, I honestly had no idea. I knew I wanted to do this. There was no other option, truthfully. And I just came to that conclusion after going through hundreds of applications and getting not even emails. I literally two calls. I’ll never forget two calls. I remember the schools. So yeah, man.
Luckily, I was eager to learn. I was in that phase where I just wanted to dive in head first. When you’re young in the field, you want to learn everything. I was in that phase and luckily I wasn’t fearful enough to reach out to these people and ask, just, hey, dude, is there a position here for me? I just want to learn. Yeah, I have no thought out explanation truthfully. It just in the moment sprung upon me, just jumped at it.
And along and definitely worked out, but sometimes it doesn’t, you know, like who knows if it didn’t work out. Who knows if I didn’t get that first full-time job at UMBC. Because I was definitely, I was going through interviews at that time and not getting calls and fielding applications and not getting any, like I was definitely going through the same thing. But yeah, who knows? Luckily it worked out.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, well, it certainly did. But I appreciate what you say too about the lack of fear about reaching out. I think that’s something that can hinder a lot of coaches too, and just being afraid and like, know, Alan Bishop’s a big name, right? And I know you work closely with him. It’s like people I think sometimes are fearful, but I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things about him, right? And to people who reach out and I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to him just a few brief times and he was great to speak with. And it was like, it to me was just something where
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Sometimes these people can seem almost untouchable, but it’s like all you have to do is send out that first message and they’ll get right back to you.
Anthony Cockrill:
Right, yeah, that’s one thing I try to do now as I go through this field and people reach out to me, whether it’s email or a DM or something, I try to give my own response. Because in flipping the script, when I was in positions reaching out to people and asking questions, I’ve had people just not ignore me and just give me half-assed answers. I know how that feels. So I definitely try to learn from that. I don’t want to be that. So when people do reach out to me, I try to give the most.
Like, don’t get me wrong, sometimes I get overwhelmed with this stuff and I may miss it, but I definitely try to give my all in giving the respect to those people and what they’re chasing.
Connor Agnew:
Well, people just want to know. It’s just small info that you can help them out with. And sometimes you’re the first person that they can reach out to. But this brings me perfectly to my first question I have for you. What drives the social media presence? Because your Instagram has certainly grown. I love what you’ve been doing and the content you’ve been posting. What drives you to be able to post? And then what drives your specific content that you do post?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, so I mean, I’m always like, I think we’ve all kind of dabbled a little bit in social media since as long as it’s been out. So I’ve always kind of like posted things from training, usually my own, you know, I try to like, and some like if teams I’m training, you know, and but I, there’s no consistency. since I was here, we’ve had kids on our volleyball team that have taken advantage of social media in the NIL space and really made a, like we literally have a kid making a living off of that. She does nothing but that. And
So having those people like in the environment and like honestly them helping me kind of like, hey, this is what you should do. And like, here’s how kind of how you should do it. Here’s how often you should do these things. like, truthfully, it was like this time last year, you know, I was like, okay, like I’m just going to post what we’re doing every day. Like, so literally like all my training, like anything I post is our kids training. And I try to just be like a really open book with it. I don’t think any like, I don’t think it’s unique.
at all because I know there’s people doing this stuff out there that may not be posting but for some people it’s novel you know. So it grasps attention and so for me since I’ve kind of niched myself intentionally into volleyball to see it in that space and like from the volleyball perspective and like how much we value training it just opens up this window of like people that are interested. So for me now it’s like I just want to post what we’re doing.
You know, I’m just trying to like, just along for the journey and here’s what we’re doing and here’s how we got to the, hopefully the point we want to get to here is how we got there from like now till December. So that’s really it. Like I’m just, there’s no like thought out process of, I just want to be super open with what we’re doing and consistently put these things out. And then now as like my, like social media has grown.
I just try to be as a resource, truthfully, information wise, because maybe there are, from my experience, how can I help these people that were in my position five years ago and answer some questions like that. So I definitely try to open up as a resource to people. I’ve offered now the consultation stuff, which is great, because people just have questions. A lot of it’s like, hey, how do I use weight releaseers, which is fine.
Anthony Cockrill:
But I want it to be more than that. Definitely, I don’t want to say like mentorship in a sense, because I think I’m a terrible mentor when we have interns. I’m sorry, I’m just not a good mentor. But when it comes to asking detailed questions, I can give really detailed answers. So just that, information dense. I want to be just something where if you’re looking for it, if you have a question on something and we’re doing something, I hope I can give as much information as I possibly can.
Connor Agnew:
And so I too post on social media, right? And I’ve had no issues with coaches or sport coaches being worried about it. I just want to hear from your experience because, okay, there we go. All right.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yes, actually, yes, recently, recently. I’m not going to go into like, I’ve had like, okay, I’m not going to like this is so recently just happened. Like, yeah, I post like, I posted a video of a kid, know, mostly, most of the time, like it does nothing to do with the individual I’m But we have like,
We’ve kind of, I’ve kind of like really need, I want our program to be known as like the developmental program in the country. You get, you come here, it’s going be impossible to get better. You’re just being in the presence, you will get better. I guess kind of what we’re preaching to like in the recruiting process and then like obviously physicality and like all these things. But so we get a lot of transfers. I guess just the nature of the beast. Like we’re intentionally getting transfers. So we, if we get like a lot of times we get kids that are like, Hey, I just haven’t gotten any better in this specific area for like three years.
I haven’t jumped, my jump hasn’t gotten any better in three years. It’s a pretty common thing we get all the time. It’s like, great, like here’s the layout, but there’s a lot of things that you have to do, and obviously you just follow what we give you. So we get these kids in, it’s like, you know it, you get transfers in, man, it’s just like, they’re almost like freshmen in high school. It’s like there’s no development, like they have no idea how to train, they don’t know what anything is.
And it makes you really question like what’s going on elsewhere and like within the profession. there’s obviously you can, there’s no laws. You can do whatever you want in this profession. But as we are getting transfers every year and like they’re older, I’m like, man, like these kids are just way too underdeveloped for how long they’ve been in college programs. Like what is going on? So I may have put something out like addressing like, like transfer portal kids are coming in underdeveloped and they’ve been in programs for four years. Like what, basically what’s going on? So that’s, that’s.
maybe upset some sport coaches at other programs, not even strength coaches, taking it as like I’m talking about their sport and not the physical development. But I mean, hey, if you’re self-conscious and feel like it is what it is, maybe the shoe fits, I don’t know. So yeah, this is where I’m learning now that I have this larger bandwidth of people it’s touching, I need to be a little more, maybe not post some stuff like that.
Anthony Cockrill:
But hey, so I had my head coach be like, yeah, you need to change this because I got this coach talking to me about like XYZ. I’m like, all right.
Connor Agnew:
It’s interesting because even with it, like you said, not being the strength coach, like for me, I’ve had, I’ve had what a ton of people transfer out and I’ve had feedback come back from one strength coach that was like, this was fantastic. I really appreciate what you’ve done. I’ve had feedback from another strength coach that said, I tried to ruin this kid’s body. Right. And so for me, it’s just like, it doesn’t really matter. Cause like you said, there’s a self-conscious aspect to it. all exactly, it’s all subjective. And I think.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
It’s all subjective.
Connor Agnew:
Straightening and conditioning is so interesting because it’s that one realm where everybody embraces the gray area. It’s not like there’s just this one solo way to train. It’s different for everybody. So that’s a little, I would agree, the self-consciousness aspect, I think, kind of reaches.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yeah, it is. Like for us, like volleyball, like volleyball is just volleyball. Like it’s pretty easy. Like physicality wise, like you do jump high and you hit R and you you move well. Like those are pretty quantifiable things and that’s somewhat objective. I don’t think that. So when I, when I’m touching on like, man, these, these kids are just underdeveloped in those three areas. I guess pretty quantifiable and that’s pretty objective. so if it rubs you the wrong way, sorry, like unfortunately, probably just need to be better.
Like, truthfully. So that’s for a whole nother day. But yeah, we do run into some issues with sport coaches. Not my own. My coaches are all for it. They’re like, hey, go follow our strength coach in recruiting stuff. They are pushing it, for honestly. I have a young head coach, a young staff. They’re all into the now stuff. So it’s nice. It’s a good relationship with that.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, and that’s certainly an experience I’ve had too, where the recruiting aspect has definitely helped. Being able to show exactly what we do. It’s been with multiple recruits. It’s funny more on the women’s basketball side for some reason. I’ll see more. But you know, we actually had a recruit come out and visit, which this one, I think pissed our coach off a little bit because she came out and visited because she knew I was at the school.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
and then ended up like definitely going a completely different route. I think it was just kind of like, oh, I’ve got no V. Let me just go there and check it out. then, yeah, well, it was, I’m not gonna lie, it felt good. But at the end of the day, I wish we got her too.
Anthony Cockrill:
Dude, that’s a flex. That is a flex.
Anthony Cockrill:
Dude, I hope, biously, selfishly hope one day we have a kid come in here just because I’m here. Like, truthfully, I hope that’s a big goal one day.
Connor Agnew:
come on, are you kidding me?
1000 % but I mean like that’s that’s the reality of this new kind of realm everybody’s on Instagram Instagram Take talk like everybody’s out there looking and consuming this media. So that is a recruiting edge at the end of the day
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, that’s what I mean, truthfully, that’s kind of how we preach it. I think it’s 2025. Like, you’re probably getting left behind if you’re not like capitalizing on this stuff. So luckily, our staff is pretty aware.
Connor Agnew:
That’s awesome. And it makes the biggest difference. And that’s just one of the biggest hesitations I’ve heard from strength coaches when asking me about social media, what I do with my posting is like, well, I still don’t know how my sport coach would feel about it. It’s like, all right, first of all, who really cares? know, second of all, I can almost guarantee it’s going to be positive.
Anthony Cockrill:
Right.
Anthony Cockrill:
It’s always fear is always the barrier to entry with this stuff. Like you just have to get over the hump of fear and people like the assumption of how people are going to perceive it maybe. The fear of judgment, know, who cares? At the end of the day, like we all had to get over it. And if you do, like just get to continue to put it out. And if it doesn’t, like there’s a small group of people maybe you’re thinking about, but then there’s a massive group of people you have no idea that’s untouched that this might come over great. like, you know, so yeah, fear, barrier to entry, just do it, jump in head first.
Connor Agnew:
Hmm.
Anthony Cockrill:
probably be beneficial if you keep doing it.
Connor Agnew:
Well, let me ask you this, right? Because that’s the second time you’ve mentioned fear not being a limiting factor in what you do. How do you circumnavigate that? How do you get around that?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, I think now like I’m not I don’t have like a I’m not super like creator like set schedule posting like these things for like just kind of go with the flow, you know, but I try what now is like I just kind of to keep myself accountable and try to post consistently. And for me, like I know there’s always going to be like backlash. There’s some people in your comments like saying things, which is great. Honestly, like like one of the reasons my social media blew up was the negative engagement I was getting.
And which is like, that’s good. Cause any engagements positive. Cause for me, like I really try to engage with our comments section and from like an algorithm standpoint, I just tells the algorithm, like there’s engagement here. So like if you can get those, even if it’s negative, right? Like you can get that engagement flowing and it just rolls into it. so that honestly, like my first few posts that blew up were purely off of negative engagement.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Which is which is fine. Honestly, like so now I’m like, okay I give give me more because that’s what’s worked for me in the past so And it’s only it’s always like out of a thousand people It’s like two so if you keep that perspective and it’s very like small if you don’t let the minor thing It’s laughable most of the time. So yeah
Connor Agnew:
Yep.
Connor Agnew:
I remember crashing out over the first couple of comments that I got that were negative. was like, this guy’s no clue. He’s probably a high school student. He has no clue. And then it took me about 10 more posts to figure out, all right, if I’m going to approach every negative comment I get like that, it’s not going to be a long career in social media.
Anthony Cockrill:
Ha ha!
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, no, that’ll stress you out. I think I swear now most of them are just like these fake profiles. They have no image in like for it. So it’s like most of the time is that, you know, they’re just like trolling you. I’ve never had like, I mean, at least like there could be, don’t even know. There’s definitely people behind the scenes talking crap about everybody. But I’ve never had like coaches in our profession that like say anything directly to me yet. That’s like, what are you doing? Like.
Connor Agnew:
Yes.
Anthony Cockrill:
So luckily that hasn’t come sure come at some point, but it’s just Confrontation breeds, know, progress. So it’s probably needed at that point
Connor Agnew:
I just the last thing on this, the sports batters are the ones that crack me up the most. Like, you it’ll be, they’ll come back to an old post, you know, and be like, you were minus 11 and a half and you lost today. Like your team is weak as hell. It’s like, all right, man. Like, thanks.
Anthony Cockrill:
Luckily sports betting hasn’t gotten the volleyball yet. We did get upset a couple times so I’m sure they would have been all over our ass at that point. You get sports bettors?
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Oh, they freak out. They freak out. It’s like, know, it’s like Dan’s picks. Yeah. Oh yeah. All the time. Like Dan’s picks 420, you know, and they’re just like, I can’t believe you guys suck this much. It’s like, sorry, man. I don’t know what to tell you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I’m sorry. Our eight to one of out of 18 of your legs didn’t work. I apologize. But, but you know, it is, I mean, it does bring me to another topic that I think is very interesting is the rise of volleyball as a whole.
Anthony Cockrill:
my god, rude the dudes parlay,
Anthony Cockrill:
my…
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
within the United States. mean, you look at, large and storied programs and see the reception that they’ve gotten and then how it’s trickled down to other programs. Like in just understanding that volleyball is now one of the premier sports. and I think it’s not crazy to say it’s going to get to a point where it will become revenue generating. Like, what are your thoughts on kind of the growth of volleyball as a whole?
Anthony Cockrill:
Hmm.
Yeah, so like when we were so out and we’re in the ACC. Last year was our first year in the ACC after the American. So making the jump from mid-major to power. I had at the time women’s basketball and volleyball. they going naturally to a power conference. Usually women’s basketball has its own strength coach. there as across the board and athletic creating positions to kind of fit the norm for power. So I had to pick one or the other. Truthfully, you have to pick.
You can’t do both. I was like, let me do both, please. I just, I want to do both. I know you gotta pick one or the other. So honestly, was a no-brainer for me, truthfully, to do volleyball for a number of reasons. I just, think the value for my coach on training and how much they let me get involved more so than like anything I’ve ever been involved in from a day to day.
And just like, like you say, kind of like how fast I see how fast volleyball is growing. So it’s kind like in my eyes, like I’m investing in something really early, hoping it pays off in the long term. So it’s a risk for sure. So kind of knowing that I’m a volleyball only and yeah, man, it’s, it’s really fab. We have like two professional leagues in America now for the first time. And then like the fans we get, like we like obviously Nebraska is like outlier, but they’re like the biggest thing in volleyball.
We had them come here, we sold out our basketball arena, selling tickets, sold them out. Like any top 10 team, we’re like thousands of fans in our arena. We were small, like 7,000 seeder. We played a game on ESPN prime time on a Sunday at like 3 p.m. So it just like, yeah, I don’t know. It’s amazing to see it kind of just be in in the moment. And it’s only going to get bigger. So for us, like you’re going into the revenues talk, like we’re going to
Anthony Cockrill:
ticket everything going into next year. So last year we only ticket the Nebraska game because we knew that would sell out. So next year we’ll ticket everything. So now you’re starting to generate revenue from that standpoint and obviously going into the revenue share. We’re obviously going to be heavily involved into that. So yeah, man, it’s crazy. I think there will be, it’s going to be interesting to see what schools kind of pick to put volleyball on that pedestal and then don’t, truthfully. like for us, we’re
SMU is putting us on a pedestal and hence why we just dominated the transfer portals like from outside looking in there’s a lot of moving parts that make that happen but yeah yeah it’s gonna be it’s gonna be really interesting the pro leagues help big time having them in America obviously we have kids getting drafted going to do that stuff and making money and being able to stay home to do that so it’s cool man it’s fun to be in right now
Connor Agnew:
Well, I really like your perspective on it too, where you kind of get to be one of the first people who really specializes in volleyball. And I remember, go ahead.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s so what’s new. Like, obviously, luckily, we were very successful this year and success breeds like individual things. So for us, like, like, like how this is how like my much my coach values my position is she’s like, she wants me to be like the volleyball, she wants it to be the same capacity as like a men’s basketball. From like that day to day, she always tells people she’s like, I want my strength coach to be seen as the same as like a football strength coach in her eyes. Like you there’s no difference from like on the sideline.
their coaching, like you can’t tell the difference. Like she, that’s how she tells people. But for me, I kind of want to be like a basketball wise, like, know, like, so the first step is like, get the title. So the director of volleyball is if we’re not mistaken is the first in the country that’s not an Olympic, like a director of a department. Most people that have volleyball is a director of Olympic sports performance, and they also have volleyball.
So I’m not the director of our department, but I’m the director of volleyball, which we’re pretty sure is the first in the country. I could be wrong, who knows out there, but from what we’ve researched, it’s the first. So we’re trying to push the ceiling a little bit. I’m trying to push the ceiling with how this is viewed from a training standpoint. I it can make a, I think this position like uniquely can make a quantifiable difference in performance. Some sports is tough, know, like I think basketball is very skill oriented.
And like sometimes hard to quantify the physicality. the end of the day, skill dominates basketball. you like the easiest examples like Jokic. Like obviously that dude’s not physically imposing by any means, but he’s the most skilled player in the world. So don’t get me wrong, you can get physical freaks like, you know, Janis or something, or the skill maybe not, don’t get wrong, he’s skilled, but in relative to the NBA. Or like his physicality dominates, but.
Connor Agnew:
Yep.
Connor Agnew:
Yes.
Anthony Cockrill:
I think it’s simple, if you just jump higher than people you have a massive advantage. And I can impact that, and I can quantifiably impact that. So I can quantify my value and then hence I can quantify from a lifestyle standpoint, from a salary, a position, a title, those kinds
Connor Agnew:
Well, I just, love it because I mean, it reminds me of exactly the guys you mentioned early on, like Joey Burgles, right? I mean, the guy who started posting and I mean, I like pretty much everybody kind of follows his template for how he posted, right? And in very similar structure to how they post now, he’s one of the first guys he’s got what 500,000 followers on Instagram. It’s, I mean, it’s absurd. I could be wrong. I think it may be even more, you know, but the people who are willing to take the risk and branch out into something new, I think are the ones who reap the most rewards. And so.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, tongue.
Connor Agnew:
I mean, I’ll say this, like, you know, not to, you know, I may be biased, but like when I think of volleyball specific strength coaches, I think of you. I don’t think of anybody else in my mind. But I mean, seriously, it’s the truth. And so I think it’s something that can only benefit you and you get to do it with a sport that you really enjoy doing it.
Anthony Cockrill:
please.
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s the environment. So if you’ve ever worked volleyball, it’s like, honestly, it’s the best sport to work with. And there is a reason every director in America that’s been there forever only works with volleyball because it’s the best sport to work with. Like Brian, like environmentally, everybody’s just so joyous to be around. There’s no negative catabolic environment ever, I feel like. Well, you see that because you in basketball. That’s not
Connor Agnew:
Yep.
Anthony Cockrill:
far off. Like lot of times it’s not the great, like the best. And I think it’s a product of just like how the youth sports are in basketball versus volleyball. And that comes up into this when these kids get here. So just environmentally, it’s so much better. Like my lifestyle is so much better because I have time now. Like I said before, like we have essentially two months off from when we finish our season to now. And that’s a Christmas. I have more time now than I ever had before. So yeah, man, it’s just
Connor Agnew:
Thank
Anthony Cockrill:
I hope, my goal is like, don’t want it to just be me. I want to keep pushing the ceiling for everybody else. Cause if everybody else can get on board, it’s only going to benefit us, all of us as a whole. So I would love to see like more like volleyball only things. It just takes, honestly, it starts with head coaches. Truthfully, they just value it. I think I got really lucky. But hopefully like maybe social media promotes that, you know, maybe like since my coach is promoting it, I’m promoting it. Maybe it just trickles it down from there. Who knows five years from now.
Connor Agnew:
Well, to me, doesn’t even just apply to volleyball. I think it applies to other sports that are growing as well. I think of softball. Softball has gotten a lot more popularity recently as well too. And so it’s been interesting because my director at University of Tennessee, said, hey, one day you’re not going to realize this, but one day everybody’s going to have their own strength coach. This is exactly how it’s going to go. And then what you’re doing drives it for other sports as well too.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Yes.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yes, yes.
Yeah, honestly, that’s what I think it needs to move like that because we talk about like this high performance, like adding value. Like if I’m getting if I have four teams and I’m stretching myself thin, the only thing I can do for that team is train and I probably can’t go to practice. I barely know these kids. The coaches have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know the behind the scenes at all. Maybe I’m like maybe we don’t have a nutritionist. These kids aren’t getting fed. Like who knows? But if you’re like engulfed 100 percent like into one sport.
And it allows you to train them better because you’re a little more in tune on like how everybody’s thinking about things and like you get to see the day to day to what matters the most. And here’s gaps you can fill in like or bring more value in. So obviously for me, like it’s not just training, like nutrition is obviously a big thing for me. And then my involvement in practice, I think is really big. And even now, like recruiting, I’m getting more like involved in from like a recruiting standpoint, just trying to make myself invaluable, truthfully. And that’s, I think that’s, that’s where like
A lot of people in the field, you want to, everybody complains, like, my hours are long and I get paid like crap. If you make yourself invaluable to a point where like the coaches think you’re impacting things, that’s going to drive your financial gain, truthfully. Like obviously results matter from your specific job as a strength coach, but you want to be seen, deemed as invaluable. So I think my coach deems me as invaluable because I do everything outside of just training.
I think most of the times, like if you’re working with four teams, they can just plug and play strength coaches and the results never change from a win and loss standpoint. But if you’re also doing nutrition and you’re also involved in practice and recruiting and visits and all these other things, now it gets really hard to replace you because you’re doing so much.
Connor Agnew:
I agree 100%. I think, I don’t know, it’s my personal preference as well too. You get to develop better relationships. You get to know these people way better than you possibly could if you had more teams. I think it makes it more fun. And like you said, if you dive into the other realms, like my fiance here is the dietician, I’m the, the joke is I’m the director of snack operations, right? Cause I’ll set up all the meals, post game hydration, things like that. But it makes it so.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
that’s awesome.
Anthony Cockrill:
All
Connor Agnew:
If you were gone, people would notice you’re missing, which I think is exactly what leads to being invaluable.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly it. it takes like, there’s a gray area you have to cross, know, like some strength coaches refuse to like ever cross that gray area. And then you’re limiting yourself, honestly. The worst thing that’s gonna happen is somebody’s gonna tell you, no, you can’t do that. And then, okay, that is what it is. But like, get out of the way. Obviously, everybody’s been saying that for every guy, get out of the weight room, gotta go to practice, gotta involve yourself, cross the gray area from a coaching standpoint.
and involve yourself that’s not your like maybe expertise but it needs to be done and so yeah again fear is probably the barrier to entry there you know the unknown so I promise it’s the most beneficial thing.
Connor Agnew:
Well, I remember my first day here, I went to the men’s practice and he was like, is everything okay? Do you need to speak with me? And I was like, no, Coach, I’m here to watch practice. And he was like, you know, and then, yeah, it’s incredible. Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Isn’t that, isn’t that crazy? Yeah. How like little and like coaches love that too. Like even like if you’re working with like a smaller team and maybe it’s like just going to competition and like, my God, like you came in that it makes these kids like so joyous. And then from like a relationship standpoint, it just, they, maybe they view you a little differently. They sort of value things a little more. And then that obviously snowballs into good things always. But yeah, man, a barrier, like just, yeah, if it’s just going to practice.
Connor Agnew:
Yes.
Anthony Cockrill:
Go to practice. If it’s like shagging balls, shag balls. If it’s rebounding for somebody, rebound. know, like, there’s just little things like that compounding over a period.
Connor Agnew:
Well, another thing I’m very curious about that I’ve seen as a highlight within your program is how you approach your nutrition with your athletes. You know, we obviously I’m very big proponent of nutrition, right? The joke is I love nutrition so much I got married to it, right? But it’s the corny one that always gets the recruits though. But at the end of the day, mean, truly I believe this is an order of importance at school, your sport nutrition, and then the weight room. Like how do you approach your nutrition? How have you gotten the resources to be able to, you know, maximize what you have and then
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
How have you made sure that is a priority for your athletes as well?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yeah, think like going back to like everything, like the plug and play replace ability, like strength coach, you could plug and play strength coaches and probably get results pretty like the same results pretty easy. Most everybody’s doing the same thing with some minor nuances here to there. But not everybody’s doing nutrition, even at this level. So not everybody’s feeding kids. And then if you do, they are probably not doing it the best. They’re doing like the bare minimum, which is better than nothing. But for us, that’s like the lowest hanging fruit that can get better.
Because training is training, that’s fine. Practice is fine. Kids are always going be 18 to 22 and have the same external struggles. But what you can control, like here, is for sure the nutrition. So for us, low-hanging fruit from this health standpoint, and we’re always talking about the managing of stressors and these things, if we’re not feeding these kids, for example, we have a that has a class at 8 8.50, they come in, they lift, and they go right after class from there.
If there’s no food, they’re not gonna eat, like truthfully. The easiest thing is just to feed them. That takes no, absolutely no thought or effort, truthfully. identifying the weak points for us is the access to food, first and foremost. So we try to give kids a meal before and after on top of supplementation throughout the day. So we try to guarantee at least two meals a day year round. Because again, if we don’t…
they’re probably not going to eat or they’re going to go eat something terrible because they don’t have time and they don’t know and they don’t have money. So you got to meet them in the middle. Like the only thing you have to do is just eat it, put no thought into it. Obviously, you want to get the highest quality things possible at certain times. Like, obviously that’s important. So for us, like resourcing, lucky to be in a place that’s very well resourced. And it wasn’t like we had to do a lot to get to this point. And it’s not even to the point I hope it to be at. So last year we opened an athlete only dining hall here on campus.
So before we had a kitchen in our, we train in our basketball arena, all the court sports. We had a kitchen in here where chefs would just cater and they would just cater right to the locker room. But before it was just post-practice, know, just training table in your locker room. We had to pay for it out of our budget. So it’s something we had to, like, I had to like really like, hey, I find this important. We need to do it. So it’s a lot of convincing on the front end. Why is it convincing? Again, lucky I have a head coach who views the exact same reasons I do.
Anthony Cockrill:
So some people it’s a lot more convincing. So we started there, you know, like, we just need to know this is what basketball is doing. I think if we want to get to XYZ, if we want kids to be healthy, like all the whole nine yards, like the easiest thing to do is make sure they’re eating high quality foods. So we started there. And then this year with the dining hall open, it shut our kitchen down, but it allowed us to get food for free. So it’s not out of our budget, but the kicker is I have to go get it and bring it to the locker room every day.
So every morning about an hour before I’ll go to the dining hall on the golf cart, bring our 14 to-go boxes of breakfast, set it up in the locker room. Kids come in, they eat, we train. 30 minutes before practice finishes, I go back on the golf cart, get our 14 to-go boxes of lunch, have that ready for them. So there’s some effort on my end, who cares? This is like, we’re getting this for free in two meals. I will go miles to get that.
So for us from a resource standpoint, just the nature of where we’re at. Before that, I would do a lot of reaching out to local companies that are small businesses, like, hey, I’m with SMU volleyball. From a social media standpoint, can we post things on social media if you give us things? From supplying our locker room, truthfully, from a snack standpoint, I do a lot of that. Hey, I’m with SMU. If we post stuff on our social media, can you supply us stuff in the locker room? And we honestly get a lot of our stuff that way.
And because like again, we have to go through like our nutrition department to get our snacks and the choices sometimes aren’t the best. So for me, like the best way to get high, the best quality things is to go via social media and hope these like people will basically allow us to get stuff for free posted on social media. So a lot of our locker rooms stocked via that way, luckily. But
Yeah, man, like at the end of the day, like the easiest thing that people are missing the boat on is nutrition. And they’re just not feeding kids whole like kids meals, like literally meals, like whole food meals. Like the snacks are great. It’s a start. It’s better than nothing. But these kids are going to go throughout their day and probably not eat anything until the evening. And it’s going to be Cain’s chicken fingers because these kids are so busy from class to training to now like the NIL landscape of business things like they have no time.
Anthony Cockrill:
So if the food’s not right in front of them, they’re gonna completely forget to eat. So for us, we’ll just put it right in front of you. Take the thought out of it. And I think, again, from a health standpoint, that’s the lowest hanging fruit that’s gonna make the biggest impact.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, it’s funny you bring up the breakfast piece. think every strength coach can relate to that a thousand percent. like, what’d you have for breakfast today? Well, nothing, you know. Oh, I had a Nutri-Grain bar. I was like, yeah, okay, awesome. The worst one I ever got was we were weighing in. Guy was light in the morning, you know, and I just knew he didn’t eat breakfast or didn’t eat something quality. like, what’d you have? He’s like, well, I didn’t have anything this morning. He’s like, but yesterday morning I had shrimp Alfredo. And I was like, all right, this is out of control.
Anthony Cockrill:
I think.
Anthony Cockrill:
Shrimp out. Hey, I’m fine. I got we have a kid here that’s really like Taipei like rudiment or like a routine oriented and like She’s like the female equivalent of like a cutting board, bro You know like the steak avocado, but she’s always been like this. So she like she meal preps like she’s like, yeah I was like, what do you have for breakfast? She’s like ground beef. I’m like, hell yeah. Oh, yeah
Connor Agnew:
Yay!
Connor Agnew:
Okay.
Anthony Cockrill:
So I was like, we get all the kids like that, man, we’d be cooking, but we’d be in a great spot. But yeah, man, like the fact, because most people aren’t like that and aren’t going to be routine, especially at this age. So the easiest thing to do is just get it to them and they’ll eat it, obviously, nine times out of 10. But obviously, like the resourcing part’s hard at most levels. I think the best way to do it is go through small businesses, maybe that are alumni based. And you can.
Connor Agnew:
would be in a great spot, yep.
Anthony Cockrill:
maybe get it NIL based, like where it’s individually with kids or within the program. That’s my first start with it and it’s worked for us.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I think even on my end, just even asking our sport coach like, I need 250 bucks per month. Like that’s it. And I’ll make it work. You know, especially for our weight gain guys, like the whole nature of the sunbelt is you recruit undersized guys who can be diamonds in the rough if you can develop them. So we’re asking these guys to gain weight and then giving them zero resources sometimes. And so I’ve I’ve been fortunate in my head too, where, you know, I’ve gotten a yes on the things I’ve asked for nutritionally, but it makes the world of difference.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have something that’s new for us this year. We start like we started a meal prep service. We’re on top of that. They’ll have meal prepped meals in their fridge so they can take more to go home. So that was we had to do some convincing there financially. And luckily, again, like my coach values it. So it was an easy yes. And that’s another like $500 a week that for for meals. So that puts a damper in the budget. But if you
if you deem an appointment from the top down and it trickles down into the kids, you know, like it just becomes our culture of things.
Connor Agnew:
Well, it all comes together, right? You make yourself invaluable and then you say, here’s this invaluable thing that I need as well. Those things can easily shake out for you.
Anthony Cockrill:
Exactly. Exactly. We’ve been blessed to get a lot of yeses here, that’s for sure.
Connor Agnew:
Those are always the best answers. Well, I appreciate you coming on greatly, man. Thank you, seriously. I’ve really enjoyed my time. For you, if somebody wants to follow you on social media, we’ve talked about it enough. Where’s the best way to follow you? And then how can they get in touch if they wanted to reach out about some consulting services as well?
Anthony Cockrill:
Yes.
Yeah, man.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, I mean my Instagram, that’s the only thing I really use now. I’m just at Anthony Cockrell, you know, like you shoot me a DM, I’ll do my best to answer questions. Sometimes it may take me time. I’m just busy with school starting at the moment, like everybody else. And I honestly try not to be on my phone a lot. Like even though I’m posting on social media, like I set like an hour, I set like an hour to do it then I don’t want to touch it again. But yeah, I also often like consulting where you go, like really get into the weeds if you need me to guide you.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, the devil-edged sword.
Anthony Cockrill:
And I’ll answer any questions about anything. I’ve had anywhere from like high school kids wanting training to, you know, like coaches wanting like, how can I implement my weight release? Like things along those lines. I definitely offer that. That’s a little more like organized from that standpoint via my social media as well. But yeah, man.
Connor Agnew:
Awesome. Well, thank you again, man. I really appreciate your time.
Anthony Cockrill:
Dude, my pleasure. This is always awesome. I’ll definitely catch you on Bloom’s thing here soon.
Connor Agnew:
Absolutely. Next, what is it, next Wednesday. Here we go.
Anthony Cockrill:
Yeah, yes sir.
