The Salem Rams, already with one mountain to climb, have found a secret hill to help them prepare for the football season ahead
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
SALEM — If opponents that had their way with the Salem football team a year ago suddenly find themselves locked in a fourth-quarter dogfight or woefully behind in the second half they only have The Hill to blame.
It’s one of the tools Rams coach Kemp Carr is using this year to get his team bigger, faster and stronger as they look to bounce back from a winless first season together. After swearing at it at first, the players now are swearing by it.
The players call it Death Hill. It’s on a remote stretch of road somewhere in Salem County – exact location undisclosed for secrecy sake – with about 150 feet of elevation change that gets the legs moving, the heart pumping and the adrenaline flowing. (It’s a win in itself to find such a place in a county Wikipedia says is “almost uniformly flat coastal plain with minimal relief.”
You’d think the idea would be to run up the hill to promote conditioning, but not surprising, Carr flips the script and has the Rams running downhill to promote both speed and control. Besides, what coach doesn’t love a downhill runner?
He first used the tactic for his track teams back in the day and it changed everything about their performances. It’s the first time he’s done it for football.
“You’ve gotta find ways to get an edge,” Carr said. “I use everything I have within my background to try to sharpen their skills, but also improve, no matter what position. That’s why we try to add as many additives to our program as possible to get versatile going forward.”
The exercise first began in June with eight hearty volunteers, a group that included rush end Antwuan Rogers and newcomers Desmond Thomas and Jovanni Rios. It quickly grew to 16, still voluntary, and then, as the benefits were becoming evident, mandatory for all and the rest, as they say, is history.
The first time they all ran it and helped each other through it, that’s when the players knew they had a different kind of mindset flowing within this year’s team.
It’s not just getting down The Hill in one piece or without wiping out the guys in front of you – “No one has, thankfully,” center Wyatt Irvine said. “That’d hurt.” – it’s getting down under a certain time depending on position and physical circumstance.
“It’s pretty awful,” Irvine said of his first experience. ”But we ran a lot and got a lot more used to it. In the beginning people were (grumbling) but I think they realized how much it helped. It’s definitely made practice a lot easier, condition wise. I feel like I can run a lot longer than regular practices now that we did the hills.”
“Our first day on The Hill I thought it was all right,” Rogers said. “I ran the first one, I felt good, I’m like all right, it’s just work. Then we run the second one and my eyes start getting black. Then we run another one after that and I was like, all right, I don’t like this. He (Carr) told us we were going to run 10, but once we got to three it was like I don’t know if I can make 10.”
There’s a story about a few players trying to skip out early in the process; they were driven out after practice to fulfill their obligation. No one escapes The Hill.
“I love the hills,” receiver Kaden Robinson said. “I love putting in hard work. It’s work. At the end of the day it’s getting everybody better, getting me better, getting the team better.”
And, after all, isn’t that, in the end, what it’s all about.
Top photo: The intrepid eight Salem football players who first braved coach Kemp Carr’s “Death Hill” training exercise during summer workouts. The group included Antwuan Rogers, Kaden Robinson, Kyvion Parsons, Desmond Thomas, Makye Murray, Jovanni Rios, Quimere Bergen and Amir Kornegay.
(Submitted photo)
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