Menu
Monday, August 28, 2017
Ryan Napoli joined the Southeast Missouri State football program to help build a winning culture.
He came from a perennial Football Championship Subdivision powerhouse, North Dakota State. During his six years with the Bison, the football team won five national championships.
So when Napoli arrived at Southeast in January as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, he understood what he needed to do to help Southeast coach Tom Matukewicz set a high standard, but he had to build a relationship with the players before he could order them around the weight room.
The best way to do that? Through food.
New strength coach Ryan Napoli is trying to raise the standard — and keep it high — as Southeast Missouri State moves into the 2017 football season.
Fred Lynch
In three months, Napoli spoke one-on-one with each player on SEMO's roster. Many of those conversations came during or after the team's 7 a.m. breakfasts. Sometimes at breakfast, Napoli would tell the player to stay late after weight lifting that day so they could talk. He started with the team's leaders, quarterback Jesse Hosket and linebackers Chad Meredith and Kendall Donnerson. In all, he spoke with 76 to 78 players, according to Matukewicz.
That personalized touch has paid dividends. As the 2017 season approaches, players know what to expect out of Napoli. If a player on crutches is late and doesn't have a valid excuse, he'll be held to the same standard as everyone else.
That's how Napoli helps create a tradition of success.
"It's all about motivation. Not every kid is fired up to go in the weight room," Matukewicz said. "Not a lot of people signed here to lift weights. They sign here to play football. So he's got to be able to inspire and motivate our athletes in there, so it's hard to do if you don't have a relationship with them.
"Just because you're the strength and conditioning coach doesn't mean you're going to get them to work hard. You've got to be able to inspire and motivate them, and that comes from relationships. So he does a good job interacting with our kids and getting to know them and knows how to push them."
Teaching has always come naturally to Napoli, who works under head strength and conditioning coach Ryan Johnson. He comes from a family of coaches -- his uncle and a cousin were college baseball coaches -- and he's never had any trouble teaching weight lifting techniques or exercises.
Weight lifting, too, was in his blood. As a high school football player at St. Pius X in Kansas City, Missouri, and later a college wrestler, the weight room was part of Napoli's daily routine. He enjoyed it. In high school, he devoured Muscle & Fitness magazines and worked out a lot with a friend. He's always had weights lying around his house.
Despite that obvious interest, Napoli arrived at Simpson College, a small, liberal arts institution in Iowa, with dreams of being an athletic trainer. That changed quickly.
Southeast Missouri State strength and conditioning coach Ryan Napoli poses for a photo at Houck Field.
Laura Simon
New path
It didn't take long for Napoli to decide a career as an athletic trainer wasn't for him. But another door soon opened. His strength coach suggested Napoli give strength and conditioning a chance. After a semester as an intern, Napoli was hooked. He suddenly had a new career path.
"After about one semester being a strength intern, I knew I wanted to be a strength coach, and that was always my lifelong goal from the end of my freshman year on," Napoli said. "That was kind of the plan."
He continued to wrestle at Simpson at 174 and 184 pounds and ended up being a three-year letterman. Napoli also served as an undergraduate strength and conditioning assistant at the school for his three final years before graduating in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science.
He worked with a variety of teams -- football, women's soccer, softball, wrestling and swimming -- putting in place training sessions for those squads. Months after his graduation, he moved to Colorado to become a football strength and conditioning intern for the Air Force Academy. When that 10-month stint was over, he wound up at North Dakota State as an intern.
Over the next six years, Napoli rose in the ranks, first to graduate assistant and then to full-time assistant. At the same time, the Bison won five straight FCS titles from 2011-2015. Along with lifting and workout sessions, part of Napoli's job was preparing all the post-game meals and helping with the pre-game spread. That came in handy when he arrived at Southeast, where he's in charge of meal preparation.
Along with football, Napoli worked with the wrestling and track and field teams (at Southeast, he helps out in areas beyond football). All the time, he was soaking in knowledge. It was there he learned buy-in from players and a successful culture go hand in hand.
"Being around that program, you've got to kind of learn that, and so when I got here, that's what [Matukewicz] wanted was culture," Napoli said. "So come in and set the standard high and you hold the standard, and that's hard to do sometimes. But holding the standard is what it is sometimes. You've got to work hard to hold that standard, and we set it high."
North Dakota State's title reign ended last season, as James Madison won the FCS crown. For the first time since 2010, the Bison were not national champions. But that didn't stop Napoli from catching Matukewicz's eye.
Culture
NDSU's season ended in mid-December, nearly a month after Southeast finished the year 3-8. It didn't take long after that for Napoli to arrive at Southeast. The university announced the hire on Jan. 19.
Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz brought strength and conditioning coach Ryan Napoli into his staff this offseason, prying him away from perennial Football Championship Subdivision program North Dakota State.
Fred Lynch
For Matukewicz, Napoli checked all the boxes. He was all about lifting while also cultivating relationships with the players.
"We needed a guy that got both ends," Matukewicz said. "That is kind of a meat head, he understands, hey, you've got to be in the weight room. You've got to get work done. But I also needed a guy that can help me with the culture because these kids are with him almost more than me a lot of times because of recruiting and all those things, and so I just felt like he had both -- the weight room side, but he also gets this culture side of things."
Like many strength coaches, Napoli is gregarious and outgoing, Meredith said. And like others, he can get riled up pretty fast if he sees something he doesn't like.
What's different about Napoli is the expectations he sets. They're high, everyone acknowledges, but he's fair. No exceptions are made.
"He made his presence known immediately, what he was about and what he expected from his players," Meredith said. "He's held us to that standard ever since."
If you're on crutches and you're late to weight training, Meredith said, you're treated like anyone else. That's by design.
"You don't show up for a job, you show up late to your job, you're going to lose your job," Napoli said. "This is much more than about being late. This is about life lessons and being on time. Hey, if your class goes late, great, throw me a text. Every kid has got their phone on them. I keep my phone on me in the weight room for that reason.
"It's about communication. It's about doing the little things right."
For Napoli, that communication started with getting to know the players when he showed up in January. Right away, Napoli had to check all the players in for those mandatory team breakfasts at the dining hall. After everyone settled in, he would sit down at a table and talk to a few players or one individual. It started with the senior leaders, and then he moved to the rest of the class. After that, he kept going until he had spoken with everyone.
This wasn't something he learned from a previous job. For Napoli, it just made sense as a coach. If he wanted the players to trust and believe what he was saying, he had to get to know them.
"That was huge for me to get that initial buy-in and learn what kind of football team we had and what kind of kids we have, and for them to get to know me so they know who I am and what I'm about," Napoli said. "That was awesome. It helped me get to know these guys very quickly."
Napoli is pleased with how quickly players bought in to what he was preaching. He believes his pedigree, working with five national championship teams, helped along with the personal conversations.
It all goes back to gaining the players' trust. The key to his job is relationships, Napoli said.
Culture has to be passed down to players, and strength and conditioning starts well before a player enters the weight room. For Napoli, it started the moment he stepped foot on SEMO's campus.
"There's all sorts of ways to get to know people, but coaching is based on trust and relationships," Napoli said. "The first way to do that is to get to know somebody."
Editor's note: The story has been updated to correctly identify the location of Simpson College. It is located in Iowa. The Southeast Missourian regrets the error.
