THE BEARDED BEAR RYAN NAPOLI
“I got into coaching to have an impact on kids’ lives. Not just make them better at football, but better members of society.” - Ryan Napoli, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach
INTERVIEW Bison Illustrated: The guy you work under, Jim Kramer, is regarded as one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the country. What can you learn from him now? Ryan Napoli: I don’t know if I’ll ever truly grasps the breadth of his knowledge because he’s really smart and knows a ton. But I mean, every day is, it’s like we talk about: You have to go 1-0 for the day so you can go 1-0 for the week. Every day you’re trying to get better, that’s what we’re doing around here so I’m always kind of watching him and how he handles situations and how he handles this. People don’t know he’s the one putting all the meals together on the road. When we travel and stuff, he’s the one who sets up all the meals. He’s the one that gives them all the menus and sets up times and this and that. Even here (on-campus), he works with the dining halls and gives them the menus. That’s what we do. He has me help him and it means a lot. He’s the guy who gets workouts ready 62
and does injury adjustments, he does the food, postgame meal. He’s actually given to me over the past couple of years so I’m in charge of getting all the meals after an away game set up, and delivered to the buses, hand it out and stuff like that. There’s just so much more that he does that’s more than just being the strength coach. It’s learning all the different hats that Coach Kramer wears so I’m going to be prepared someday to take over my own program, whether it’s here or somewhere else or whatever down the road because I’m just better prepared. If I could ever be as good of a strength coach as Jim Kramer, I’d be really happy. I mean, my goal is to try to be better than him. And I’m not going to say you can’t be better than him because I’m a competitor and I’m always going to try because that’s my goal. I’m just so honored. He’s so great. Just look at what the kids say about him. Every senior that comes through here talks about the impact he has on this program and on them. Every single senior. That’s really cool. That’s who I want to be. I got into coaching to
BISON ILLUSTRATED • JANUARY 2017
have an impact on kids’ lives. Not just make them better football players but better members of society, whether it’s football, throwers or wrestlers. Make those kids better so when they go off into the working world, they’re prepared and Kramer does that. BI: A lot of people have noticed you on the sidelines during football games. What are you doing there? RN: We’re (Kramer and Napoli) the Get Back Coaches. We’re in charge of making sure the guys stay behind the white line so we don’t get penalized. We get those special teams. So when Coach Kramer, on the third down, says, ‘Hey, punt D,’ Coach Kramer will pull the special teamers, I have to run up and down and make sure to get everybody, make sure the defensive guys are ready or making sure the offensive guys know that we’re getting the ball back. I’m always the guy yelling that stuff. I’m also getting the guys at halftime. We hand out rice crispy bars, bananas and the Gatorade and the water. We do whatever else coach needs us to do,