Our Olympic sports continue to bring high effort to training for their anticipated seasons. In light of Thanksgiving, we are extremely thankful for your commitment and resiliency this fall! November led to seeing the long awaited return to competition with Men’s and Women’s Basketball beginning their season schedule. It is great to watch our Hawks pick up where they left off and bring home victories again. Additionally, our staff wanted to congratulate Lake Kwaza, Women’s Track & Field alumni, who was 1 of 10 athletes to make the 2020-2021 U.S. Women’s Bobsled National Team - you go girl! Good Luck With Finals Hawks!

This month the Olympic Strength & Conditioning staff has been productive with consistent training of our student-athletes, internship curriculums, and intern progressions. Our interns, Josh Wilken & Juan Maldonado have been a huge part of our department’s training hours running smoothly. Additionally, they both presented their squat and deadlift progression to the staff. Finally, some of our staff member’s have gotten out and voted early for the upcoming 2020 election. We hope you use your voice next week on Election Day! #HAWKtheVOTE

September presented the first opportunity in months of consistent training with our student-athletes. We have been productive to say the least! Getting back to the weight room and training alongside teammates has provided some sort of normalcy for our Hawkeyes. The intern curriculums have begun and they will be presenting their exercise progressions at the end of next week.

The month of August has been filled with challenging announcements regarding Fall competition, individual programs within our Athletic Department, and ongoing struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic within our community. Our student-athletes are strong and resilient. They continue to set examples for all of us and remain dedicated to getting better each day. We appreciate all of you! Additionally, we are excited to welcome back volunteer coach(s) Josh Wilkin and newly added Juan Maldonado for the Fall semester.

We are preparing for Fall Sport competition with teams that have been participating in the ‘Pilot Program’ coordinated alongside the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. The majority of our student-athletes and strength coaches continue to work hard remotely. Our staff is working tirelessly with our fellow Sport Performance Department members to ensure our protocols within training are sound prior to the student-athlete’s return to campus

Fortunately, the Iowa Athletic Department has allowed the return of some of our student-athletes. This has enabled a handful of our Olympic Strength and Conditioning staff to return and train their respective teams. Though, the other half of the staff is patiently waiting to get back, we have remained productive collaboratively. Our staff continues to participate in zoom meetings with sport coaches, sport performance staff, and professionals around the country. Additionally, we have partook in numerous crucial conversations regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement aspiring to educate ourselves. Our staff is committed to creating an environment grounded in justice and equality for our Black student-athletes. We understand this needs to be an ongoing conversation and are committed to standing by and for our student-athletes!

The Olympic Staff’s productivity during the month was filled with numerous staff meetings, webinars, educational forums, and conferences via zoom. As of recently, we have been hard at work planning and discussing our department’s return to campus. This has been through collaborative conversation between our staff, our administration, athletic training, sports medicine, and sport coaches. Ultimately, working to maintain the safest environment for both our student-athletes and staff members. We are eager to return to campus to continue our efforts towards the betterment of our student-athletes! Congrats to all of our student-athletes on finishing up the spring semester & of course a huge congratulations to our graduating seniors - class of 2020, we are so proud - Go Hawks!

Working from home has been a productive transition for our Olympic Strength and Conditioning Staff. We have participated in countless zoom meetings within our staff, sport psychology, sport assignments, and other universities around the nation! We recently chatted with Florida State regarding force plates and other Big Ten Universities about various performance topics. Check out Coach Robert’s new article titled, From Journals to Touch Screens – Is S&C Programming Software Taking Over?. - https://simplifaster.com/articles/strength-conditioning-programming-software/ Lastly, we wanted to congratulate our 2019-2020 Iowa Athletes of the Year, Luka Garza with Men’s Basketball & Katie Birch with Field Hockey.

The month of March was filled with some amazing student-athlete moments! What a time to be an Iowa Hawkeye. Our staff wants to announce a congratulations to the following; Luka Garza - Men’s Basketball: recipient of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, Big Ten Player of the Year, Wooden Award All-America Recognition, Pete Newell Big Man of the Year, Consensus First-Team All-American, USWBA First-Team All America, Associate Press First-Team All-America, Times National Player of the Year, Stadium National Player of the Year, Naismith Finalist, Sporting News First-Team All-American, CBS Sports/NBC Sports, and USA Today First-Team All-American Kathleen Doyle - Women’s Basketball: Big Ten Player of the Year, WBCA All-American, WBCA All-Region Team, USBWA Third Team All-America, Associated Press Third Team All-American, 1 of 5 Ann Meyers Drysdale Finalists, and CoSIDA Academic All-American Spencer Lee - Wrestling: recipient of the Dan Hodge Award and Big Ten Wrestler of the Year Wrestling: Big Ten Champions and Head Coach Tom Brands recipient of the NWCA, InterMat and Big Ten Coach of the Year Laulauga Tausaga - Track & Field: named Midwest Regional Female Field Athlete of the Year and Track and Field Athletes of the 2020 Big Ten Indoor Championships, winning gold in the weight throw and runner-up in the shot put Wayne Lawerence - Track & Field: Track and Field Athletes of the Big Ten Indoor Championships, winning Gold in the 200m, 400m, and 4x400m relay Swimming & Diving: named 6 CSCAA All-Americans - Hannah Burvill, Kelsey Drake, Daniel Swanepoel, Anze Fers Erzen, Sam Tamborski, and Mohammad Neumen Lauren Guerin- Women’s Gymnastics: named 2020 WGCA All-America second team on floor Joslyn Boyer - Volleyball: selected for the U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team - Anaheim roster Nia Carter - Softball: named to JWOS All-Freshman Team The Men’s Tennis team who finished their season with their highest ranking in program history (#20) consisting of Kareem Allaf, ranked #51 in singles and doubles team Will Davies and Oliver Okonkwo at #12 Isabella Solaroli and Megan Conroy - Field Hockey: named NFHCA Scholars of Distinction along with 9 other of their teammates named to National Academic Squad Head Coach Andrew Carter - Rowing: selected to be the USRowing U-23 National Team Head Coach We have so much appreciation for the student-athlete and coaches we serve. Thank you for your hard work. Due to unforeseen events from COVID-19 we continue our efforts to support and care for our student-athletes. We will remain united, strong, and supportive of our community and student-athletes. Go Hawks!

The Olympic strength and Conditioning staff was excited to make more additions in the Isoinertial training department by installing upright pulley flywheel systems. The staff was also involved in the monthly Sport Performance forum, led by Terry Noonan, Director of the Sport Performance Department titled, NCAA: Enhancing a Culture of Safety in College Athletics. Our very own, Coach Renteria spoke at a University of Iowa Sports Medicine clinic for college and high school soccer coaches regarding injury mitigation and load management for soccer players. Additionally, Coach Renteria led a curriculum for the interns regarding programming within the weight room. Our interns began their exercise progressions on both squat and deadlift.