Athletes work out in the newly renovated Welch Fitness Center.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
Fitness testing: a requirement for every sports program that no athlete ever wants to complete. Although it’s easy to overlook the essence of the training, it can come down to determining the outcome of player’s season.
“Each coach has a different methodology for determining, sometimes, who is on their squad, who participates in games, that sort of thing,” DePauw University Athletic Director Stevie Baker-Watson said. “They want to make sure the student athletes are physically in shape in order to go through the season. They’re generally playing over 13 weeks.”
Fitness testing can come in many different forms, depending on the sport. Regardless of what form it’s in, fitness testing can always bear problems for both players and coaches.
This was the dilemma for men’s head soccer coach Brad Hauter, who incorporates a ‘Who will quit when it gets tough?’ into his fitness testing with his need for players to run two miles in 12 minutes or less.
“Over the past five years, we have had 90-95% of our guys past the test… This year it was in the 60% range,” Hauter said. “We didn’t seem to have the edge and 'All in' feel as in previous years. Talent is great, but without hard work and commitment, it accomplishes little.”
If a player is unable to meet this requirement in the fall, he cannot train with the rest of the team.
“Two seasons ago, he allowed those individuals to remain a part of the team… This past fall… he made the decision that he was going to remove them from the roster,” Baker-Watson said. “He did give everyone at least three chances, maybe even four chances.”
Hauter is hoping the stricter consequences for not passing the fitness test will motivate the team’s preparation for seasons to come.
“Our goals are to win conference titles and to win a national championship,” Hauter, whose team went 10-8-1 this past fall, said. “In order to accomplish this we need to find out who gets anxious in big moments and can’t perform. Our ‘Mental Toughness’ test (the run) helps identify that.”
Softball coach Erica Hanrahan had to deal with a similar situation earlier this month when they opened their season.
The team tests three standards: endurance (225 jump rope revolutions in two minutes), agility (softball-specific “movements” in a 40ft by 40ft box) and strength (two pullups, 30 pushups, 20 military pushups or ten isometric pushups).
Like Hauter, Hanrahan gives her players multiple opportunities to pass the test. If not completed on time, the testing starts to cut into playing time.
“We’ve been doing [the fitness program] for three years, and everybody has always been able to play, because they’ve met these standards by the first games,” Hanrahan said. “This has never been an issue until this year.”
The issue has been the timing of when the season officially begins, which is usually the third week of February. This season, the first game came on Feb. 7, cutting the player’s time to prepare for the fitness training.
One player that has suffered from this time crunch is junior infielder Linsey Button, who, as a result of the fitness testing, wasn’t able to play in the first four games of the season.
“It wasn’t the plan to start the season not passing the fitness test, but I understood this is the standard for the team, and it doesn’t change for any one player,” Button said. “I made sure I had a positive attitude all weekend and helped the team in the best way possible.”
Button, who has been a starter for the past two seasons, recently completed the fitness training, and will be able to play in the Tigers’ next games on March 7.
“I couldn’t be more proud of how she… mentally and outwardly supported her teammates that [first] weekend,” Hanrahan said. “She just was a wonderful leader and role model, and bounced back right afterwards and was able to complete the test.”
Regardless of how frustrating fitness testing can be, Hauter’s viewpoint on it can relate to any DePauw sports team.
“It’s a rare player that can just show up and do [the fitness training],” Hauter said. “The more players invest in themselves in the team, the tougher they are to beat.”