>
Department of Kinesiology
Department of Kinesiology Provides Physical Fitness Training for Deputy Sheriff Program Kyle Pagerly was only 28 years old when he was murdered. He had just learned that his wife was pregnant with their first child. A deputy sheriff with the Berks County Sheriff’s Department, Pagerly and several other law enforcement personnel had arrived at the home of Matthew Connor in June 2011 to issue a warrant for the man’s arrest on charges of burglary, possession of firearms, and assault. As the officials talked with Connor’s girlfriend at the front door, the criminal fled out the back of the house. Pagerly pursued him, but was killed when Connor opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle. In Pagerly’s case, being in peak physical condition—he had been training for an Ironman triathlon—did not influence his outcome. Yet, due to the dangerous situations in which deputy sheriffs sometimes find themselves, being physically fit often can mean the difference between life and death. That’s why deputies in the Deputy Sheriff Academy, administered by the Justice and Safety Institute within the College of Liberal Arts at Penn State, must pass the physical training portion of the program to graduate. Pagerly passed it with flying colors in 2011, the year he graduated from the academy.
Part of that training includes maintaining or enhancing their physical work readiness, or physical fitness. That’s where W.E. Buckley, professor of kinesiology, comes in. He and a few colleagues—including Lauren Kramer, instructor in kinesiology; Hachiro Oishi, lecturer/building coordinator for intramural programs; Dane Aumiller, coordinator of athletic programs; and Diane Baldwin, coordinator of athletic programs— meet with the deputies three times a week for two hours at a time to help them become physically fit in addition to giving classroom lectures. “The main goal of the physical training portion of the academy is to prepare the deputy to be able to perform job duties safely and effectively,” said Buckley. “We all know there are physical requirements in law enforcement such as suspect apprehension, crowd control, and prisoner transport. Our job is to enable the deputy to reach a level of physical fitness where he or she can perform these duties effectively and safely when required. We want to get them to a level of fitness that allows them to chase down and physically subdue a perpetrator, but then be able to recover quickly enough that they can handcuff them and take them in.”
Tracking Progress
“Deputy sheriffs secure courts, juries, county jails, outside areas of airports, and other locations as well as serve papers,” said Daniel Miltenberger, a law enforcement training specialist for the academy. “They are in contact with bad guys, and those guys are working out. Our deputies need to be prepared.”
On February 15, the 2013 cohort of the academy—fifteen students altogether—met at the Penn State Multi-Sport Facility to run and do sit-ups and pushups, all with a goal of finding out how much progress they had made since the beginning of the semester and how far they still had to go to pass the final physical fitness test.
In the nineteen-week course that starts in the classroom and moves out to the field, deputies in the academy learn from attorneys, magisterial district justices, police officers, university faculty members, and others about all aspects of what it takes to be a deputy sheriff— from how to plan for a trial to mastering defensive tactics.
Trainee Stephen Perkins, 46, gave it his all and came out on track. The former construction worker and arborist from Harrisburg said he had been feeling like his career wasn’t going anywhere when a friend who was a New York City police officer recommended he pursue a career in law enforcement.
20 | Health and Human Development