Many are talking about a new face in OWU’s weight room. This past school year, the Ohio Wesleyan Athletics Department hired its own strength and conditioning coach for the student athletes on campus.
His name is Anthony Glass, but is commonly referred to as “Coach Glass” by his athletes. During his career, he has trained more than 40 conference championship teams, 10 national championship teams, and numerous Olympic and professional athletes. In addition, he has trained more than 75 first-team All-Americans from 19 different sports.
Isabel Milner, a sophomore on the women’s lacrosse team, said meeting Glass in September took her back a bit.
“To be honest, I thought Glass was intimidating. He seemed very serious and had high expectations for us.”
Although intimidating at first, she learned that Glass just really cares about his athletes and building them up to be the best athletes they can be.
“Coach Glass’s system was a whole new system that we had to get used to. We learned how to adjust, and I feel like we all built mental toughness from that.”
Milner believes the coach has helped to build a positive environment in the weight room that will benefit the women's lacrosse team.
Paige Messersmith, the head women's lacrosse coach, is currently in her sixth season here at OWU. Before Glass’s arrival, Messersmith led her team in the weight room. Although she ran a productive weight room lift herself, she is happy with the changes Glass has enacted.
“The biggest changes are just in the structure and progression of the programs that he put in place. We lift more weights and perform complex exercises. He challenges us and advances the workouts.”
Messersmith, not engaging in the workouts herself, has a unique point of view of how she sees Glass affecting her team.
“Just by watching how people are executing, we can see people are progressing in the weight they are using. They have better form and pay more attention to detail.”
Messersmith is expecting to see less injuries during the spring season as well as faster recovery after games because of Glass. Messersmith ends her thoughts by exclaiming,
“Coach Glass has been a phenomenal addition to the athletic staff. He is impressive.”
Glass does not just work with the women's lacrosse team. Ryan Zonts, a freshman on the men's baseball team, shares his opinions on the coach.
“He has improved my athleticism. I believe his workouts, specifically lower body, have helped me gain muscle as well as improve my flexibility.”
Zonts explained how Glass’ workouts are geared towards baseball specifically.
“All the workouts we’ve done are motion specific for baseball. I feel as prepared as I could be at this time and more in shape to be ready to play than if we had not had any of these lifts.”
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