The Strength Game

Tanner Kolb is the Associate Director of Strength & Conditioning for Olympics Sports at West Virginia University. Kolb joined the Mountaineer athletic staff in 2012 and was promoted to his current position in 2017, where he handles the strength and conditioning responsibilities for the rifle, men’s soccer and wrestling programs. Prior to WVU, Kolb was an assistant coach at East Carolina Univer...

Matt Gebert is an Assistant Football Strength & Conditioning Coach at the University of Mississippi. Gebert joined the Ole Miss staff in 2026 after serving a similar position for football at Auburn University for the 2025 season. Prior to that he was an assistant director for football strength & conditioning at the University of Arizona from 2024-2025. Before Arizona Gebert logged stints a...

Kenny O’Mary is the Assistant AD – Director of Sports Performance at Sacramento State. Prior to relocating to the west coast, O’Mary served in a similar role as the associate athletics director/director of student athlete high performance at William & Mary since 2021. Before joining the Tribe, he was the director of strength & conditioning at Howard University for three and a half years. O...

Joe Connolly is the Head Sports Performance Coach for Football at Arizona State University. Connolly arrived in Tempe in 2018 after serving as the director of sports performance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for two years primarily working with the football program. Prior to UMass, he was the director of strength and conditioning at the University of South Carolina. Connolly oversaw t...

Melissa Mercado is the Tactical Manager and Practice Planner General Manager at TeamBuildr. Mercado joined TeamBuildr in 2024 first as a tactical manager before taking on additional responsibilities as the practice planner general manager in 2025. Prior to her current position, Mercado was a strength and conditioning coach at the School of Infantry-East for the Marine Combat Instructor Course and...

Mike Axler is an Exercise Science professor and researcher with extensive experience in endurance sport, strength training and applied physiology. Earning his PhD in applied physiology from the University of Delaware in 2023, Axler currently teaches classes on the subject of anatomy & physiology and human nutrition as an assistant professor of exercise science at Jacksonville University. Arriv...

Tim Caron is the Co-Founder and Head Coach of Allegiate Gym. Caron helped start Allegiate Gym with two of his former football players and co-founders in 2017. Since the opening in Los Angeles, they have seen the gym expand to three total locations. Prior to his work in the private sector, he spent the majority of his career in collegiate strength and conditioning. His last stop was Army West Point...

Colton Krueger is a Sports Performance Coach at William & Mary. Joining Tribe athletics in 2024, Krueger oversees training for the baseball, men’s and women’s soccer teams in addition to assist with football. Prior to W&M he was a graduate assistant sports performance coach at Youngstown State from 2022-2023 where he worked with the football, track & field, and men’s tennis programs. H...

Mike Sullivan is an Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach at Syracuse University where he oversees and implements the training for the women’s lacrosse and women’s tennis teams. Additionally, Sullivan serves as the head strength and conditioning coach for the USA Senior Women’s Lacrosse team joining them in 2024. Sullivan arrived on the ‘Cuse strength staff in 2023 after most previously work...

Aaron Potoshnik is a Strength and Nutrition Coach working in corporate wellness in the tech industry. Potoshnik stepped into remote coaching and the private sector in 2023 following a long stint in collegiate athletics. With his own business in Alpha Performance, Potoshnik works 1-on-1 online to help individuals create a lifestyle to transform their bodies and find strength in their own skin with...

Alex Dee is an Assistant Sports Performance Coach at the University of Illinois Chicago where he oversees the training for the baseball, track & field/cross country, and swimming programs. Joining the Flames in summer 2025, Dee previously spent the last two year as an assistant director of sports performance at Wichita State University where he worked directly with the baseball, men’s tennis a...

Matt Rodriguez is the Associate Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Sacred Heart University. He returned to SHU in 2022 where he directly oversees all aspects of sports performance for both men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse, and assists with the football program. Rodriguez first served as a graduate assistant strength coach at Sacred Heart from 2016-2018 where his responsibilities included...

Kayla Girgen is a registered dietician, certified personal training, and founder of the online wellness community Sugar + Strength Academy. Her background spans clinical nutrition, personal training, and years of firsthand experience coaching women through transformative lifestyle changes. As a registered dietitian and nutrition entrepreneur she founded KG the RD, LLC in 2020 on a mission to help...

Erik Hernandez is the Associate Director of Sports Performance for Olympic Sports at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Hernandez began his tenure with the Tar Heels in August 2010 as intern coach with a year break in that stint where he served as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Tulsa in 2011 working with football and basketball, before returning to UNC as an assistant...

Kristoffer Koerper is the founder of Full Strength Father and co-founder of Built Sports Performance. He is the Director of Facility Design at Samson Equipment, where he leads the design and development of high-performance training facilities for athletic programs nationwide. Full Strength Father is a lifestyle and coaching community dedicated to helping driven, high-performing fathers maximize th...

Michael Stegemoeller is an Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach at the University of Pittsburgh. Joining Pitt in spring 2025, Stegemoeller works directly with the Panthers women’s lacrosse, and swimming & diving programs. He previously worked in a similar role at the University of Cincinnati, where he was responsible for training for the women’s lacrosse, swimming and diving, and track...

Andrew Clayton is the founder of First Called Strength & Performance. First Called Strength & Performance is an online coaching and personal training service based in Jacksonville, FL. Clayton started First Called Strength and Performance on a mission to offer more than just run-of-the-mill coaching but change people’s lives through his God given gifts and ultimately help people to feel st...

Chad Dunn is the Owner of Move Human Performance Center and Physical Therapy in addition to being a sports performance and exercise specialist specializing in catastrophic injury recovery. Based out of Chandler, AZ, Move Human Performance Center and Physical Therapy was founded in 2017 by Chad and his wife, Jackie. With local community ties, their goal was to help establish a local training and ph...

Jeff Kryglik is a strength coach and personal trainer as well as founder of Deep Blue Training LLC, which offers personal training in person as well as online program, consultation and coaching. His mission is to teach the sport of strongman to the average gymgoer, prospective competitor and to simply make people better through unconventional methods. Kryglik began working as a local television pr...

Tommy LaBriola is an on-site Human Performance Specialist at O2X Human Performance training tactical athletes. Prior to working with O2X Human Performance in late 2024, LaBriola spent five years as a Minor League strength and conditioning coach with the Toronto Blue Jays. Most recently, he served as the head AAA strength coach and previously worked with the High-A team in Vancouver, British Columb...

Ken Nowick is the owner and CEO of Cerberus Strength USA, the American brand of the Scottish company of the same name which strives to provide supportive equipment of the highest possible quality to not only high level athletes in strength sports but also the recreational athlete too.  Attaining a master’s degree in chemical and process engineering, Nowicki not only shifted gears out of a career i...

Mike Colella is a Strength Coach and the Owner of Coach Mikes Dawg Pound. Colella established his coaching business and LLC in 2023 after training clients at Explosive Performance from 2018-2023 in Frederick, MD. Throughout his time working in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor and strength coach he’s worked with athletes of all levels from youth to pro, competiti...

Tim Kontos is the Associate AD for Sports Performance and Student-Athlete Wellness at Virginia Commonwealth University. Kontos is going into his 27th year at VCU. First arriving in 1998 as the head strength and conditioning coach, he became an assistant athletic director for sports performance and was again promoted to associate AD before his new title of associate AD for sports performance and st...

Blair Vaughan is the Head Football Strength & Conditioning Coach at Sam Houston State University. Prior to his start with the Bearkats in 2025, Vaughan spent two season as the associate head strength coach at the University of Arizona. He arrived in Tuscon after spending 2020-2022 on the Army West Point strength and conditioning staff working with the Black Knights football team. Vaughan got h...

Anthony Fuhrman is a Strength Coach, Athletic Trainer and Co-Founder of Strengthlete Collective. The Strengthlete Collective is an online community and training app that gives members access to strength sports-based fitness programs created by world-class athletes and coaches. In addition to working with strength sport athletes, strongman competitors and team sport athletes alike, from the high sc...