After a 3 month process of interviewing coaches from in and out of state, Southwestern University has finally chosen Adam DeFelice to be the new strength and conditioning coach. Coming to SU from the University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio, he started on Monday, September the 27th.

Originally from Connecticut, and once a division 3 athlete himself at Springfield College in Massachusetts, Coach Defelice seems to be a perfect fit for the Southwestern athletic department.  “What appealed to us about Adam over some of the other candidates was not only his educational and professional background, but also his variety of knowledge when it comes to a wide diverse array of sports. He’s worked with all the sports that we have here on campus which makes it great cause he’s familiar with all the different needs for anything from women’s soccer to men’s football and everything in between,” says assistant athletic director Doug Ross.

Coach Defelice has a strong background in weight lifting, but above all, considers himself a coach and a mentor. “I think Coach DeFelice will automatically tell you he’s a teacher. He loves to teach, he loves to show athletes new things, help them get better technically at different types of lifts. He likes the teaching aspect of it and I think even more so than that, he gets great satisfaction from seeing someone master a skill set that he taught them,” says Ross.

The purpose of the strength and conditioning coach is to help athletes get into shape for their games. A lot of the time this means the off season is crucial for getting athletes stronger, faster, and for football, more bigger than the other teams. During season, the athletes need to be the best they can be if they want to compete. “I am the coach that works with all of the student athletes in the weight room training them and preparing them physically for their sport whether that’s in season, off season, practice, or games. My role is to prepare them physically and help them become the best versions of themselves in terms of their athletic performance but also as people,” says DeFelice. 

In addition to helping prepare athletes for events, weight lifting also has many other benefits. “The benefits of having a strength coach is somebody that it’s going to teach you the proper technique on any and all movements that you’re going to do in a weight room which helps keep you safe, helps prevent injury, and also helps you make strength gains, power gains and all those things that make you a better athlete.”

Defelice has a few hobbies outside of coaching. Obviously, he loves to lift weights, which he  competed in from 2013-2015, but there was one thing I was surprised to find out. “Very similar to coaching, one of my hobbies is Olympic weight lifting. When I was at the University of Kentucky, I used to actually compete in weightlifting. Now it’s just more of a personal competition with myself so obviously lifting weights is very important to me as well. Other hobbies: I love to read. I am a little bit of a history buff/ history nerd, whatever you wanna call me. So just kind of learning random things about history,” says DeFelice.

Coach Adam DeFelice likes being at Southwestern so far and is very excited for what his athletes will accomplish this semester.