HOW MICKEY MAROTTI APPROACHES TRAINING RETURNERS, EARLY ENROLLEES IN OHIO STATE'S WINTER WORKOUTS
Had Ohio State played for a national championship on Jan. 13, Mickey Marotti might have finally found some worthy competition for what he calls his second favorite day of the year – behind only when the team goes through mat drills.
A loss to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl so devastating that the team has a sign depicting the game’s score in the weight room ensured that didn’t happen, though. So when the annual teamwide meeting came around this January, putting the 2020 Ohio State Buckeyes in the same room together, Marotti again found himself in his personal heaven.
In his eighth year as the team’s strength and conditioning coach, he has become something of an institution in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Yet what has become a yearly tradition hasn’t aged at all in his mind.
“More so than football games and championship games, it's the meeting because now you have a new team and you almost kind of restart,” Marotti said on Wednesday. “You hit Control-Alt-Delete, start over. Blank sheet of paper. And you really map out what the next seven, eight weeks are going to be about and how you can change and how you can improve and how you can enhance and what you need to do. And in that meeting, it's like an Academy Award-winning deal for me. It's the biggest thing ever.”
In the minds of freshman wide receivers Julian Fleming and Gee Scott, both of whom he remembers afterwards saying, “That was the best meeting ever,” whatever Marotti said must have worked.
“We’ll see in February when…” said Marotti, his voice trailing off.
He didn’t need to finish that thought to send a mighty clear message, though.
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