Scott Caulfield stepped into his role as the first ever Director of Strength and Conditioning at Norwich University in June of 2021. Norwich is the oldest private military college in the United States and the birthplace of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a group of university-based programs designed for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Caulfield’s extensive knowledge, strong philosophy and passion for weightlifting are all what made him the right man for the job.
Caulfield became interested in the field of strength & conditioning as an athlete after he recognized the connection between sport performance and time spent in the weight room. For 20+ years, Caulfield worked across America, coaching strength & conditioning at various universities. He started out as an aircraft director in the US Navy and became the Norwich Men’s rugby Strength & Conditioning Coach in 2003. In 2008, he went to Dartmouth College to work as an Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s and Women’s Swim teams and the Dartmouth Rugby Football Club (DRFC).
While working at Dartmouth, he became more involved with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and eventually got a job working at the NSCA headquarters in Colorado Springs. He did a bit of everything there, from coach education to coach development.
“Anything to do with strength conditioning coaches from high school to the professional level, I had a hand in some way, shape or form,” Caulfield says. “Whether it was web content, journal articles, recruiting people to write and speak, events. You name it. The cool thing for me was we had an actual facility at the headquarters in Colorado Springs. About 5,000, 6,000 square feet. We trained athletes there too.”
Caulfield spent 11 years as the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach and Coaching Education Manager at the NSCA Headquarters. While working at the NSCA, he sought to further refine his expertise by pursuing a Master’s Degree in Sport Coaching at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology. In 2019, he became the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Colorado College before returning to Norwich in 2021.
“I grew up here, I went to basketball camp when I was a little kid here, so it is literally home,” Caulfield says. “I tell a lot of people that too. It’s neat the way things work out because often in this profession, you don’t end up getting to be very close to home and do what you do.”
Back To His Roots
Caulfield’s current role at Norwich has brought his career full circle, but his values have stayed consistent throughout his coaching tenure. According to Caulfield, one of the most important things for a strength coach to establish is a philosophy. To be more specific, Caulfield separates it in terms of coaching philosophy and training philosophy. Where coaching philosophy consists of the overall principles you value as a coach, and training philosophy is about how you decide to enforce those values.
Coach Caulfield collaborated with Coach Brian Gearity, Director and Assistant Professor of the Master of Arts in Sport Coaching (MASC) program at the University of Denver, to write an article in the NSCA Coach Journal specifically about this idea. In the article, they describe coaching philosophy as the “why” behind what coaches do and training philosophy as the “how”. Your coaching philosophy should be backed up by your training philosophy to reinforce the values that are important to your program.
“For example, if a strength and conditioning coach believes athlete development should be holistic or whole person centered (i.e., the why), then the strength and conditioning coach should use practices (i.e., the how) such as career advice, mentoring, and support for success in school and other areas.” (Caulfied & Gearity, NSCA Coach Volume 5, Issue 1, Page 15)
If a disconnect occurs between your coaching and training philosophies, cracks in your program will show and athletes will become less receptive of the information you present. Thankfully, there are a number of philosophical tools coaches can utilize to get a better understanding of their own program and make sure their philosophy is sound.
Self-awareness is one strategy Caulfield suggests for looking deeper into your program. Self-reflection and evaluation can both be used to make sure your actions are aligning with your philosophical goals. Another way that coaches can refine their coaching philosophy is through determining what behaviors they tolerate in the weight room. By establishing a clear set of rules for athletes to follow, coaches can further solidify what they want their program to look like. There are many paths coaches can take to determine their own philosophy, but it’s important to find and follow the path that’s right for you.
Coach Caulfield provides a framework for coaches looking to formulate their own philosophical goals. First, he recommends thinking about which beliefs you value the most and how you would like to see them conveyed in practice. Then, he says to write down your strongest beliefs about training and reflect on how they actually exist in your life. Finally, list the specific training principles you believe in, such as specificity of training, progressive overload, recovery, etc. With all these resources gathered, coaches should have a strong foundation for building their own philosophy.
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