Letter From AFM - Saluting Strong Men

Ever since Boyd Epley changed football forever when, in 1969, he persuaded Bob Devaney to allow Nebraska football players to participate in weight training, the role of strength and conditioning in the game has taken center stage. When the Cornhuskers went on to win consecutive national championships in 1970 and 1971, it was a vivid demonstration of the power of strength training for football and it dispelled the myth that lifting weights would make players muscle-bound and slow.     At that time, there wasn’t a single strength and conditioning coordinator in the country associated with a college football program (Epley became the first). There were strong players, of course, but most of the time credit was given to hard work on the farm prior to training camp. In a lot of cases, that was true.     The same was true in high schools. While my high school