Masters in Coaching Podcast- Episode VI

Tim Cates talks with longtime strength and conditioning coach Ed Begany about his 30 years working with high school athletes.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
For three decades. He's been ateacher, a coach, an administrator,
and a strength and conditioning coach insouthern California. He's helped coach six CIF
championship teams and a national championship atModern Day High School. On top of
all that, he's a professor atConcordia University, Irvine. He's ED Bighanny
and we'll talk to him next onepisode six of the Masters in Coaching Podcast.

(00:23):
Let's go, Hi, everybody.Tim Kates and welcome to episode six
of the Masters in Coaching Podcast.Thanks for being with us. Our guest
today is an educator with over thirtyyears of coaching experience. He has coached
at Modern Day High School, FairmontPrep High School, Saint Paul High School,
Lahaboro High School, Warren High School, and Whittier College. He has

(00:45):
served as strength coach at all ofhis coaching stints, and now he's an
assistant principal at Huntington Beach High School. He of courses ED Bighetti and ED.
Thanks for being with us. Howare you? I'm doing great?
Tim? Thanks for having me on. Absolutely You're gonna in principal now at
Huntington Beach High School. You've beenan administrator for a few years. You've
been a strength and conditioning coach,and all the stops you've made, you've

(01:07):
been a teacher. You're an educatorat heart. You also teach a strength
and conditioning course at Concordia University Irvine'sMasters in Coaching and Athletics Administration program.
You've had a long, successful career, ed tell our listeners about it.
Well, he started. I playedat Saint Paul High School many years ago
from Mary Natsich, kind of aHall of Fame coach, and you know,

(01:29):
I had a love for the sportof football and strength conditioning was definitely
very different back in the early eighties. Our coaches didn't know exactly what they
were doing, but the effort wasthe key and more was better, which
is not always the case. ButI definitely enjoyed that portion of it,

(01:51):
and I had some amazing coaches alongthe way. And stop playing right after
high school, but jumped right intocoaching and from there up at Lahavar High
School, and then after that Ihad a great stint there. I went
to Whittier College. I'm a coachwith Ken Visser there for a couple of
years. And then I went backto my alma mater, Saint Paul High

(02:12):
School. I was the offensive coordinator, assistant head football coach, and strength
coach there with Marion and kind ofrevitalize that program to what it was.
And then I had a great opportunitymoved on to Modern Day High School,
where I started in ninety six,and fortunate enough to win a national championship
in nineteen ninety six, and wewe won five championships in that time frame

(02:39):
and one of them was a national. Actually two of them were nationals,
and it was a lot of fun. Got to coach Matt Lyoner to a
Heisman Trophy winner. Not too manypeople can say that. It was also
his algebra teacher, which kind ofinteresting. But got a great opportunity.
At one point we had nine studentathletes on scholarship at USC, and it

(03:00):
was pretty nice and exciting to godown and when they were coaching the bowl
games and stuff like that, goand watch them flourish and be on the
field and talk to the coaches.It was a lot of fun. So
I had a great time there.Then from there kind of moved on.
I actually started at Warren High Schoolmany many years ago, coming out of

(03:23):
high school. For a couple ofyears, I left that off the list,
but go Bears and jumping back intoit. I got a master's degree
and moved on to administration and nowI coached coaches, and about seven years
ago I was approached to teach anamazing program at Concordia and it's it's an

(03:46):
outstanding course because you get to it'sall online. And some of my students,
even this semester, I have onestudent from Canada, I have another
student from Japan. It's pretty cool. And so you really I've had Natron
Means was a student and I grewup actually watching him play, and then

(04:08):
now he was a student, astudent in my class, you know,
I, you know, on Sundaysgrabbed the football and act like him being
a Charger fan. At also kindof interesting the dynamics, and it's just
a great opportunity for any aspiring coach. And as you know, all the

(04:28):
n C two A coaches need tohave a master's degree in order to coach
and at that level. And sowe're very fortunate that a lot of my
students are coaches in the field currently. And you know, the head coach
at Hawaii was in my class acouple of semesters ago, and the Calgary

(04:48):
the head the head coach was therein my class. So it's really interesting.
It's a great dynamic and there's alot of different it's not just football.
There's a lot of different athletes inthe class, from soccer, volleyball,
cheerleading, it's all all kinds ofprograms. Ed Bcganny is our guest
here on the Masters and Coaching podcasts, and you touched on something thirty years

(05:12):
ago. Strength and conditioning coaches werebasically unheard of. Twenty years ago,
we started seeing them make their markin the high school sports, certainly in
the college of professional sports. Nowthey're fixtures on high school campuses, helping
out the golf team, the baseballteam, certainly the football and basketball teams.
Strength and condition over the last thirtyyears has turned into something that has
just grown and grown and grown,and you've been right there in the middle

(05:35):
of it. Absolutely. You know, it's very interesting. I touched on
it earlier and I said, youknow, back in the day, when
I was in high school, wewould lift in the morning circuit train and
then in the afternoon we would comeback and then powerlift, which is counterproductive
to what you're doing. Your poorbody is being beat up. You either

(05:58):
train one way or the other.You don't train both. It's like,
you know, trying to be amarathon runner but but also a powerlifter at
the same time. You can't reallydo the same thing. So it's changed
a lot because science has really education. Knowledge is power and everything we've learned
it starts with the energy systems ofwhat our bodies using and specifically what you're

(06:20):
trying to train for certain sports,train for certain things. But we have
found that you know, pure strengthdefinitely comes from Olympic type movements. Triple
extensions a big thing. So theknowledge power concept, the USA certification,
the National Strength Coaches Association, allthose associations have really helped young coaches learn

(06:46):
about weightlifting correctly and what to doand how to do it. And you
know, my coaches back in theday had no idea because they learned from
their coaches. I mean, andif you really, if you really look
at things like you know, I'ma big kettle bell person, and those
were actually created way back in Russiawhen they're trying to lift and they couldn't

(07:10):
afford a barbell and dumbbells and thosetypes of things and weights, and so
they you know, somebody decided toput this together and try to train with
this kettle bell, and there yougo. All of a sudden, now
everybody's using the kettle bell for differenttypes of training. So it's really interesting
the dynamic. I'm very fortunate tobe in a bunch of great places and

(07:32):
be able to When I was atModern Day, we would go all over
the country and spend time with thedifferent coaches in the offseason, and you
know, I got to go toNebraska with Boyd Eppley and train with him
a little bit and watch him getup at four o'clock in the morning,
watch him train wrestlers, and thenat five thirty train girls basketball, and

(07:56):
at seven o'clock train football, andat ten o'clock train golf. And it
was really interesting to go through that. But that that knowledge base really afforded
me a great opportunity to be astraight coach at all the places, and
I'm very grateful for all my headcoaches and they made it a priority.
And I think that's the key inany program, because you're going to get

(08:18):
the athlete, you're going to getand it's a matter of can you improve
them? Can you make them bigger, faster and stronger, And the real
the main thing about lifting is injuryprevention. That's the first thing. The
reason you left is to prevent injury. People think it's to get stronger or
faster. That's a byproduct of whatyou should be doing. You want to

(08:41):
prevent injury number one first and foremost. And then you've got to know how
you're training and what you're doing insteadof base foundation. And you know,
I work with all my students tocome up with their own programs, but
it's a year long program and itcould be a there's a either a year
long or a four year long program. And you know, I encourage him
to keep stats and stuff so youcan see. When I was at modern

(09:03):
Day, I had seventeen years worthof data that I could take a look
at and certain teams were stronger thanother teams and figure out, you know,
in our championship years, you know, maybe our offensive and defensive lines
were a little stronger than normal,or are skill guys were faster than normal,
And it was really interesting to takea look at that. And now

(09:24):
with the GPS monitoring systems that theyhave. They have them on like a
Saint John Bosco. They have jerseysthat the kids were and so back in
the day, our coaches would justrun us without knowing how many miles you've
actually trained. And so if youwere a wide receiver, it was not
uncommon for you to run six milesa day in routes and then sprints and

(09:48):
by the time you got to agame, you were exhausted, your legs
were gone. But that's not thecase anymore. It started really with Chip
Kelly because he was doing such anon huddle stuff at Oregon. It's really
put put that GPS component into adifferent category. And what happened is he

(10:09):
brought it to the NFL and thenthe NFL guys start using it. And
I was fortunate Sanchez Mark Sanchez.When I was at Mission Vo High School
as an AP, they used MissionVo High School as a training facility for
one week in the summer. Theycalled it Jets West. It was pretty

(10:30):
cool and I got the opportunity towatch them train a little bit, talk
with him, talk to some oftheir coaches and those types of things,
and it really opened my eyes tothe current state of strength and conditioning,
and so they talked about that.So the quarterbacks now run between stations because
there's a GA or somebody watching ona computer at the end that they check

(10:56):
in with and it says, okay, according to this, you don't have
any sprints or you have X amountof sprints at the end, and so
they would they would try to gettheir heart rate up for a period of
time in between the drills and soit's pretty amazing that they can actually monitor
that and then log it. Soyou don't leave your legs on the practice

(11:16):
field. And on Friday night whenI was at Modern Day, we would
really take a look. We workedwith Kevin McNair and Bruce Rowlinson and we
would talk and meet about, youknow, we want to make sure that
we're our fastest for when we playedLong Beach Poli or Della sal and those
types of things. So we wantedto make sure that earlier in the week
our kids weren't dead. And ifyou're playing an opponent that maybe wasn't as

(11:37):
challenging, you might be able totrain a little harder and maybe not be
at your best on a Friday nightor Saturday night. But if you were
playing in a championship. You wantedto be one hundred percent plus to you
know, your legs and your strength. So you know, things have really
changed, and I think that dynamichas afforded opportunities for athletes to get bigger,

(11:58):
faster, stronger. Fascinating to seewhere strength and conditioning has gone now
in the twenty first century. EdBeganny is our guest here on the Masters
and Coaching podcast. And you've beena coach and educator an administrator for thirty
years. Why what is it aboutworking with kids, young people, teaching,
being a mentor Why was this somethingthat was important enough to you to
dedicate most your life to. Youknow, I was fortunate. I mean

(12:22):
I had great parents, my dadand my mom, but you know,
being outside and with coaches, theinfluence that they had on me at a
young age. You know, Iwas just an awe of what a coach
did and what they stood for,and I wanted to please my coaches.
I loved athletics. I loved thatfamily environment that your athletic family gives you.

(12:45):
Whether you're representing a school or aclub or a boys club or whatever,
it doesn't matter, or just playingon the corner with your friends.
I loved athletics, the competition,and that's kind of driven me my whole
life. The teaching aspect is awhole nother ballgame, because you know,
education is one of the pillars ofour society, and the more education you

(13:07):
have, the better life you canlive. So you know, I was
again influenced at a young age bycoaches playing Little league and different things.
And then when I got into highschool, had great coaches played basketball and
track and soccer, and you know, the different sports and those types of
things, and the things I've gainedfrom sports, it's they've afforded me great

(13:30):
opportunities my entire life, and mylife would be different if if sports wasn't
part of my lifestyle. And sowith that being said, I went into
teaching because I wanted to give backto the communities and coach and I thought
I'd just be a football coach anda straight coach the rest of my life.
But I think God had a differentplan in mind, obviously, and

(13:52):
he now has me coaching coaches,and I'd never thought that that would be
the case, but I think Ican. I can touch more athletes in
the sense of going through the coachesand influencing them better, and that's been
a great opportunity for me. I'vebeen in charge of athletic programs at actually
at Saint Paul. I started there, and then mission Ville High School,

(14:18):
El Toro High School and then nowHuntington Beach High School and all great stints,
great coaches here at Huntington Beach HighSchool. They really dedicated to the
community and the students themselves. Andsome of them are walk on because we
have a state of not every coachas a teacher anymore, and you get
a lot of walk on coaches,but they're they're quality people and like our

(14:41):
softball coach, he does an amazingjob with our program, and it's it's
it's our students first and uh andwinning second, and winning is a byproduct
of developing a good, good athlete. And you're an assistant principal during a
pandemic as a school administrator, fromwhen we went to distance learning in March
to the start of this school yearhere in the last couple of weeks again

(15:01):
still doing social distancing and learning distancefrom off campus. How challenging has it
been as an administrator to navigate throughthis. It's been very challenging. I
mean it's it's very uh from thesocial emotional aspect, the athletes, the
coaches, you know, the yoyoing, Okay, we can we're in

(15:22):
phase one of releasing athletics again,so we can start to run and do
things. Oh, we can't dothat, so we're back to doing nothing.
And then all of a sudden,like currently we're potentially going to be
in Phase two in the twenty eighthand in phase one, you can't use
any equipment or shared equipment. Astudent could have a football, but he
can't toss it to anybody. Hecan just have it in his hand,

(15:45):
those types of things, and youknow, it's been very challenging for our
athletes. I think the biggest disappointmentand most the most the biggest challenge was,
you know, the way athletics endedabruptly last mark. An example would
be like our baseball team. Wehave a quality baseball team. Benji Madur
does a great job here at Ito Beach High School, and we have

(16:08):
I want to say eight athletes.I believe that we're going on to Division
one schools in our baseball program,and so we were going to make a
run and we do every year.But this is a very unique group,
and I felt really bad for himbecause they never got that opportunity. They
only played six games and then theywere told that's it, you know,
and they kept hoping it might comeback, but it never did. And

(16:30):
now those athletes have moved on,they've graduated, and now they're in college
playing you know, baseball at adifferent level too. But they never got
to complete their high school experience.And you know, when you work four
hard years, the culmination of yoursenior year, and you know, your
parents go in your games, andyou know, recognition and accolades and playoffs

(16:52):
and the opportunity to play for aring, those types of things, those
were all, you know, therug was yanked out from underneath them.
And again that social emotional aspect ofjust shown up every day playing baseball and
living life through baseball was taken away. And now they were home, and
you know, our coaches did agood job of trying to do Google meetings

(17:17):
and stuff like that, trying tokeep everybody focused and organized. But it's
not the same. I mean,you're not You're not able to see each
other, hug each other, highfive, you know, tell each other
work harder. You know, wecouldn't go to the weight room and lived,
they couldn't represent their community, andit really I've talked to the athletes
and it's it really, I don'twant to say damaged, but it it

(17:40):
really was a huge obstacle in ahurdle for them. And I think that's
been the biggest problem with this pandemicis not that obviously people are dying.
That's not a great thing, butyou know, the everyday life that these
young people have. Some of themhave played baseball since they're four years old,
and you know, all of asudden to be you know, seventeen

(18:02):
years old and a senior, oreighteen years old and a senior in high
school and you weren't able to completeyour senior year. That's going to haunt
you for the rest of your life. And it wasn't a choice. It
was something that they was dictated tothem. So that's the problem. But
you know, I think on theother hand, kids and students and parents
and everybody's resilient and uh, youknow, we're trying to do what's best

(18:26):
to just move forward. You can'tdo all in the past, but we're
trying to learn from certain things.And I think our coaches have learned to
appreciate a lot of things as wellas the student athletes to appreciate what they
had and not take it for grantedand work even harder. Ed Bighanny as
our guest here on the Masters inCoaching podcast, and a good time to
tell you about our friends at ConcordiaUniversity, Irvines Masters in Coaching and Athletics

(18:51):
Administration program the number one athletics graduateprogram in America. They have more students
enrolled every term than any other programof its and it can be completed one
hundred percent online. During a timelike this, when education is being done
from a distance, this is thebest time to check out Concordia University,
Irvine, as they've got over threethousand alumni from every state in the US.

(19:14):
They've got four seasonal start dates winnerspring, summer, fall. It's
never too late to get going startedat time that's convenient for your schedule.
You can take one course at atime, or you can customize your curriculum.
You can choose between a Masters ofArts in Coaching Athletics Administration or a
Master of Science in Coaching and ExerciseSciences. Finish it just over a year
if you want, it's about fifteenmonths. For more information, go to

(19:37):
CUI dot edu slash coaching that CUIdot edu slash coaching ed. We've ran
down all the things that you've doneover your career as an educator and a
coach now as an assistant principal atHuntingson Beach High School, but you're also
a teacher now teaching a course instrength and conditioning in the Masters in Coaching
Athletics Administration program at Concordia University,Irvine. For those listening right now,

(20:03):
maybe they're currently a teacher, maybethere's somebody looking to change professions and becoming
an educator and an administrator. Talkabout how important it is to get that
master's degree and how really simple itcan be for somebody to go through this
program at Concordia University, Irvine.It fits really to anybody's schedule. You
know. I know all all theteachers, the professors that are teaching alongside

(20:26):
of me, and they've all beenwhere those people are and have taken that
next step. You know, Iwork with my students like during this pandemic.
You know, it's not just it'sdo you know I have an assignment
too, on Sunday. It's gotto get done. I have students email
me and say, you know,I'm not able to do it because of

(20:48):
this, and life gets in theway sometimes, and we work with each
other. It's eleven week course,which is nice, and it's the opportunity
at Concordia is for everyone, andit goes at different paces, and so
the teachers are very they're very accommodating, and they work with the athletes.
And I say athletes because in mymind, everybody's an athlete. But you

(21:12):
know, students, you know,I had a one of my students as
a mom and has three children,and yet she's a head coach, and
so life gets in the way.But yet she's still getting her masters.
And she and I were talking onthe phone the other day and she thanked
me for working with her and becausethe lab was due on Sunday, and
can I turn it in on Tuesdaybecause of my son's birthday is Sunday And

(21:34):
absolutely. So it's things like thatthat we're able to work with each other.
But I think the biggest connection isthe fact that we're all in the
fields that we're teaching in, andI think that's huge. I talk about
that all the time, about howlike Troy Rowland is the head basketball coach
at Mission Vio High School and hasdone an amazing job and on a lot

(21:56):
of championships. He is the epitomeof what a coach should be. And
that being said, he's teaching soand he's also an English ap teacher,
so it's at a high level.And there's an example of what caliber you
get at Concordia. And you know, I teach an in face class one

(22:21):
week and we're able to visit Wevisit SC, Mission Vo Saint John Bosco
and it's actually hands on talking withthose coaches and they get to see the
athletes working. We weren't able todo it this year because of the pandemic,
but in the years past, doctorProyce and myself have taken the athletes
and with my connections at SC andwe were trying to get in u sale

(22:42):
this year, but it didn't workbecause of the pandemic. But we're trying
to give everybody that experience. I'vehad students fly in from Ohio, Florida,
Tennessee, a variety of places justto be part of something like this
and the connections that they've received beingin the class as well as you know,

(23:03):
talking to those coaches, and it'severybody wants to help everybody. It's
amazing when I go to SC andAaron Osimus is the strength coach there now
and he's you know, ed comeon down and he spent forty five minutes
talking with us, just talking abouttheir program and what they do and the
different programs that they have, notjust for football, but for other other

(23:25):
sports as well. And we touredtheir weight room and got to talk to
a couple of athletes and a coupleof coaches. It's it's just the total,
the total package at Concordia, andI'm very, very blessed to be
part of that and honored to bepart of it. Well Ed, we
appreciate the time. Thank you somuch for sharing your story talking about your
course at Concordia, and hopefully thisinspire somebody to take that next step and

(23:47):
take that leap and to go aftertheir master's degree. And thank you so
much. Continued success and hopefully thispandemic will get over suit we can get
back to somewhat normal education for ourkids out there. Exactly thanks to Tim.
I appreciate your time you'd do agreat job. Oh thank you,
sir. That's Ed Bighanny, Assistantprincipal at Huntingson Beach High School, his
faculty member at Concordia University, Irvine, teaching a Strength and Conditioning course in

(24:10):
the Masters in Coaching Athletics Administration.Over thirty years as an educator and coach
and strength and conditioning coach throughout southernCalifornia. We thank ed for his time,
and we thank you for listening toanother episode of the Masters in Coaching
Podcast. Remember for more information onConcordia University Irvine's Masters in Coaching and Athletics
Administration program, go to CUI doteedu slash coaching that CUI dot edu slash

(24:34):
coaching. Until next time, TimKate saying so long,