Holgorsen keeping on the move
Shoes were made for walking and that’s exactly what Dana Holgorsen is doing.
The sixth-year head coach has turned to a different style of therapy in recent years. Walking, and doing it quite a bit. Holgorsen is up to around five miles, or two loops, per day traversing the Morgantown campus and has used it as a form of relaxation.
Sometimes he’ll walk more, sometimes less but the goal is to keep moving.
“They’ve been fairly therapeutic,” he said.
The idea spawned from the popular instructional video, TED Talks, where the focus was instead of holding meetings over lunch or the dinner table, do it in motion.
“We hold meetings while we walk,” Holgorsen joked.
Which makes things interesting because of the fact that many of the meetings coaches conduct involve watching video. But the head coach made the comment that he could watch his phone walking around campus to solve that issue.
"Which is what the kids do nowadays," he responded.
It’s something that helped the head coach deal with some of the stresses that accompanied the 2016 season and remarks that the practice kept the coaching staff sane at times last year.
It’s not just a solo activity either as Holgorsen has included other assistant coaches, support staff and even occasionally a player or two. But the players present more of a challenge than some of his other companions on the trek around town.
“It’s funny these guys can go run forever and ever and ever but they can’t walk. They want to walk a mile per hour and I’m like come on guys I kind of consider this exercise,” he said.
Holgorsen also has been known to use walking as a way to help him calm after a practice session where he leaves the field with a bad taste in his mouth after what he observed. But so far so good for the 2017 edition of the Mountaineers on that front.
“I’ve not needed a therapeutic walk so far,” he added. “…Everything is good.”