Parker Whiteman Can't Lose
6/22/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Richard Retyi, U-M Athletic Media Relations
(with special thanks to Lindsey Bennett)
Parker Whiteman had it all. He was 22 years old. Had a job as a strength coach with the Baltimore Ravens. Enjoyed lucrative freelance work with area training center Velocity Sports and local high school athletic departments. Had a nice apartment. Had money in the bank. So how, at 24 years old, did Parker Whiteman suddenly find himself unemployed and living alone in a small house in Morgantown, West Virginia
Whiteman grew up in Keyser, West Virginia, and played outside linebacker at Division II Shepherd University, just 95 miles east of his hometown. He developed a good relationship with the strength and conditioning staff at Shepherd, which inspired him to work with them following his playing career. This experience led to Whiteman enrolling in McDaniel College in Baltimore to pursue a master's degree in Exercise Science. Shortly thereafter, Whiteman was working as a full-time strength coach with the Ravens while also doing lucrative side work with the training center Velocity Sports and a number of area high schools. The money was good and Whiteman was a rising star, but something didn't feel right.
"I realized that I wasn't having the effect on the athletes that I wanted," says Whiteman of his early professional work. "Working with the Ravens or part-time with other athletes, it was hard to develop the relationships that I wanted to. NFL players aren't there year round, they're older and they make millions of dollars. It was hard for me to help them and guide them the way I wanted to."
With "only 30 percent" of players staying behind to train with their NFL strength and conditioning staffs, Whiteman watched pros return to their college campuses to continue working out with staffs that had mentored them during their collegiate years. Whiteman found himself coming up short with his own charges, trying to replicate the bonds he had built as an athlete with the strength and conditioning staff at Shepherd. He decided he needed a change, however drastic.
Whiteman chose to transition to collegiate strength and conditioning. He started making phone calls and talking to people to research where he should go to become the strength and conditioning coach he wanted to be. From Syracuse to Virginia Tech and Maryland, one name kept coming up: Mike Barwis.
"He called me up out of the blue," remembers then head of West Virginia's strength and conditioning program, Mike Barwis. "He did his research and for some reason the idiot picked me. I didn't have a position for him, but I told him, I'll teach ya, but I can't pay ya,' so he came to work for free."
Whiteman quit his job and moved back to West Virginia, buying a small house and living off the money saved from his professional jobs in Maryland. For one year, Whiteman worked for free as an intern with Barwis and his staff, learning as he went and developing the athlete/strength coach bonds that he had desired. His hard work and expertise led to a graduate assistant position the next year, which quickly led to an offer of full-time employment.
An assistant under Barwis took a head job at Tulsa in strength and conditioning coach, leaving a vacancy on staff. Whiteman was first on the list.
Whiteman worked for half a year with the West Virginia strength and conditioning staff before Rich Rodriguez was hired as the next coach of the Michigan Wolverines. After returning home from the Fiesta Bowl with the victorious Mountaineers, Whiteman and the rest of the staff had one day to decide whether or not to accompany Barwis to Ann Arbor, regardless of position or pay. The vote was a unanimous, yes.
Barwis and his right-hand man, Chris Allen, flew to Ann Arbor to prepare for the arrival of the transitioning staff, leaving Whiteman and the rest to make the wintry drive to West. Whiteman packed his car to the roof with whatever he thought he might need for a month and then a late phone call added one last piece of cargo to his Ford Escape.
"Mike asked me one last favor," says Whiteman. "To pick up his dog, Maggie, and drive her to Michigan."
A six-hour drive took almost nine with slick roads, a few missed turns and frequent doggie pit stops. Whiteman and the rest of the West Virginia staff arrived in Ann Arbor after dark in sub-zero temperatures with no homes and no jobs. Whiteman felt right at home. "We lived for a month in the Residence Inn and got the rest of our stuff a month and a half later," said Whiteman. "We were living out of our cars, basically."
Whiteman was hired full-time at Michigan as coordinator of strength and conditioning, where he dove into his work.
"I feel as if I've grown 10 times more as a strength coach," says Whiteman. "It's a whole new set of kids and we're able to do more. I've seen our athletes come so far in just a year, but the hardest part is still ahead of us, going from being good to great."
Summers are an important time for the strength and conditioning staff, which get to teach smaller details and refine technique when things are a little slower around Schembechler Hall.
"The program also gets deeper and deeper as an athlete progresses through it," says Whiteman.
"Last Monday was the most excited I've ever been to have kids lift," Whiteman continues. "We moved into a new phase just as they were coming out of a difficult two-week hypertrophy period and it was the heaviest I had seen them lift. The amount of energy we had 90 days from the first game was amazing. Everybody was jumping up and down and cheering every rep. I told one player I wanted to jump in and start doing cleans with him. That's a great feeling to have. My heart was racing the whole workout. You don't come down all day until you get home and then it's a pretty big drop. I am really enjoying this summer."
Whiteman's hard work and sacrifices have put him in a position to develop the bonds between athlete and strength coach that eluded him for so long.
"With Mike's help, I will be better than him some day," says Whiteman. "There's a long way to go. I want to win Big Ten titles, national championships and make Michigan's faithful fans proud of us."
Parker Whiteman has it all. Again.
