Robbie Aldridge, who has served as a volunteer assistant coach for the Bryant Hornets football team, has been named an intern in the strength and conditioning program at Auburn University.
“An intern seeking a grad assistant (job),” Aldridge said Tuesday. “It came about with a little help from Coach Calley. “They also posted an opening on Footballscoop.com. I turned my resume in. They had a few calls and it all worked out. They said it wouldn’t be just making shakes and cleaning benches. They said they’d give me a little coaching opportunity. There really hasn’t been a follow-up call so I’m still a little in the dark.”
Aldridge started helping Bryant head coach Paul Calley and his staff after graduating from Henderson State University.
“He was an all-Great American Conference defensive end, probably the strongest player they had on their team,” Calley related. “He was a guy that lived in the weight room. That’s what he loves to do. He had a desire to get into personal training and strength conditioning.
“The opportunity presented itself here for him to come in and help us,” the coach continued. “He was a natural.”
“He asked me to come in during two-a-days and help out during the summer,” Aldridge said. “He said it was pretty beneficial and I just kind of stuck with it. I’ve been here since then.”
“During the season, I let him run the weight room, do the workouts,” said Calley. “He also helped coach the defensive line. It added another person to our staff that we desperately needed. It was good to have him here. He’s never missed a day, always been on time, very productive.”
Aldridge played high school football in Birmingham, Ala., so he’ll be heading home, basically.
“Coming out of high school, (Auburn) actually called and asked me to walk on to be a long snapper,” he mentioned. “I didn’t want to do that so I went up to Indiana State then down to Henderson.”
It was no small thing that Calley trusted him to run the weight room.
“I’ve done the weight room for as long as I can remember,” he stated. “Nobody ever really wanted it and I didn’t feel comfortable turning it over to anybody until he came along. He jumped in there and did a great job. The kids love him.”
“It’s been a great learning experience,” Aldridge asserted. “He’s let me do a little bit on my own and that’s really helped. I’ve learned things that I thought I knew that I didn’t know, or I didn’t have full knowledge of that I do now.
“The main thing is the kids,” he added. “They’ve learned a lot as well. I’ve incorporated a few new things that they didn’t know, trying to teach them. Instead of them being machines and me saying, ‘Do this, do this,’ I’ve ask them questions and I tell them this is why we do it, this is why we want to do that, what the benefit is from that lift and technique. In the short time that I’ve been in the weight room, I think we’ve had pretty good success.”
“He’s a tremendous amount of help,” Calley stated. “I saw a lot of gains. A lot of guys learned different lifting techniques, a lot of new stuff. You know, I’m more old-school. He’s got a lot of the new training styles and different things that I’ve learned and I can use. Coach (John) Wells has worked closely with him and I’ve given John the task of kind of taking over Robbie’s role when Robbie leaves. We’re going to miss him but I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him.”
