Tower of strength

While high school athletes look for guidance on how to train for sports that may or may not happen this fall, Milford High School has made sure that they have someone in charge of that supervision for the summer months.

Ryan Gray – a 2017 Milford High graduate and soon-to-be senior at Springfield College – was recently named the athletic department’s head strength and conditioning coach for this summer (not in a full-time role), a position Gray is thrilled to take over for the next few months.

“In high school going through the summer workouts, that’s when I started to fall in love with this field,” Gray said. “I always envisioned what this field of work could be; and in particular what the Milford athletic programs could be. The coaches did a great job running (off-season) programs at the time I was there.

“But I always knew it could really be something that was super inclusive to all athletes and students.”

Gray was a standout football player and wrestler for the Scarlet Hawks. He built some strong relationship around the building during his time as a student-athlete.

Gray has always enjoyed the grind and the process that athletics require, which made the move into the field quite an easy choice.

Still just a kid himself, in some respects, Gray says the reaction to his new role has been overwhelming.

“The teachers, the kids, the community, the coaches, everyone has been so supportive,” Gray said. “They all remember me from high school. So they’re all on board and super excited.”

Of course, Gray’s initial attempt to begin running off-season programs has been made difficult with the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s still been a good experience thus far.

“I was really hoping this was going to be a five-days-a-week, on-the-fields and in-the-weight-room kind of thing to help build relationships with the coaches and these kids to really try and get things going,” Gray said. “A strength coach will oftentimes see their athletes more than the actual coaches do, especially in the summer.”

Gray has been creative, however, by doing training online, running an Instagram page, sending out programs with Microsoft Excel and just trying to interact with kids as much as he can.

“We’re hoping with things starting to open up slowly,” Gray said, “we can start getting small groups of athletes on the fields or in the weight rooms to really start ramping things up.”

What has helped Gray adapt quickly to such an odd start in what is a very hands-on role was his time with the Brown University Athletic Department as an intern in the summer of 2019.

“I saw how interactive they were online, so I figured I could implement a lot of stuff myself,” Gray said. “I worked mostly with the football team because those were the guys there in the building, working out in the summer. But I definitely learned a lot there.”

Milford – by nature – is a sports town.

Gray knows all about that, and he also knows taking the job amplifies just how important athletics can be in a person’s life.

“Sports can always teach you life lessons that you can use in academics and now hopefully some things that I can take and use in my career as well,” he said. “The discipline I learned in wrestling and football carried over to when I was waking up at 4 A.M. to drive to (Brown) in the morning and I wasn’t getting paid.

“My old football coach said ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to figure it out.’ Sports just provide those lessons about determination, grit and those good buzz words you hear with sports, they aren’t just words – they mean something.”

In times when personal relationships are going to be critical, Gray is lucky enough to have a big head start on most people who find themselves in the position that he now finds himself.

“When these seniors were freshmen, I was a senior. So I’d like to think some of them are going to know who I am,” Gray said. “I know some from wrestling, and having that experience on my side will just help even more. The nice thing is the coaching turnover hasn’t been that great so that’ll be helpful as well.

“Milford takes a lot of pride in hiring good coaches and keeping them long term. So I’ve crossed paths with a lot of them. So that’s going to make tracking people down and communication a lot easier.”