If you were up at 6 a.m. two Fridays ago, you would have seen 30 baseball players sprinting around campus on a scavenger hunt for hidden Diet Cokes — one of Coach Giff’s latest workout inventions.
“He does keep it light,” senior shortstop Colin Hites said. “I mean, we get work done, but he definitely does keep it interesting, and we’re not just doing the same stuff over and over again.”
Starting his own strength and conditioning program at Hillsdale two years ago, Patrick Gifford directly oversees 11 of Hillsdale’s sports programs and helps occasionally with men’s and women’s track and cross country, which has freed up time for the rest of the athletic staff.
“Before Pat got here, we had to do it within the football staff in terms of training, planning, and time in weight room,” head football coach Keith Otterbein said. “This allows us to spend more time schematically and ensure we’re not pulled away from recruiting.”
Gifford grew up immersed in sports and began coaching high school sports as a junior at Michigan State University, graduating in 2009 with a degree in kinesiology, with a concentration in coaching and exercise science. Before coming to Hillsdale, he served as an assistant strength coach at Liberty University.
Gifford said his favorite part of his job at Hillsdale is building relationships with athletes and staff.
“Not just physically in terms of getting stronger and better at their sport, but seeing them when they get accepted to med school and they’re super excited, or when they get offered that job,” Gifford said. “Some of the stuff you teach them in the weight room — like you need to go through adversity, you need to push our of your comfort zone and things like that — are gonna help them down the line as they go into their careers.”
With between 250 and 300 athletes to train on a regular basis, Gifford said the toughest part of his job is being able to give individualized attention to every athlete. Even though he usually arrives at work around 5 a.m. every morning and finishes the day on campus around 7 p.m., he says there’s still not enough time in the day.
“He’s a high intensity guy, has a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, is a hard worker, and he puts in lots of hours,” Otterbein said. “Luckily we’re not paying him by the hour, because he puts in long, hard hours.”
Gifford said he tries to be sensitive to athletes undergoing the academic rigors of Hillsdale.
“You’ve got to know when to back off on them and when to push them,” Gifford said. “I’ve got to read them when they walk in in the morning for a 5:30 lift and they didn’t’ sleep, and I’ve got to know them and make sure that I’m reading them right, because they’re going to set themselves up to get injured, and we don’t want that.”
Junior volleyball player Paige Vanderwall said Gifford is good at being in tune with athletes, as far as knowing when to push them or cut them some slack.
“Giff is as tough as he wants to be, but also as sweet as he wants to be,” she said. “He’s kind of like a teddy bear, but he tries not to be sometimes…and that’s definitely something you need to have in a strength coach: they’re not going to accept anything but the best.”
When Gifford is not supervising or planning workouts, he’s reading about them. He said he’s always on the lookout for ways to improve his programs and make his student athletes faster and stronger, and for ways to improve leadership and team-building.
“Giff is good at making workouts specific to what we need as a team,” senior offensive linebacker Jake Bull said. “He even tailors our workouts to our different positions on the team.”
Several athletes mentioned Gifford’s goofiness and spontaneity. Senior first baseman Haley Lawrence said Gifford often brings two nerf guns to her team’s lifts.
“Anytime he sees someone lifting too light of a weight, he’ll shoot them from across the weight room, and then that person knows they need to push themselves more,” Lawrence said in an email.
At other times, Gifford will organize a game of capture the flag on campus, or he will give a random “flash challenge” where athletes have to run around and look for something in the sports complex.
Hites said that Gifford almost always has a Diet Coke with him.
“When he doesn’t have a Diet Coke, he’s probably already angsty, and then as soon as he gets upset he’s going to go get one.”
Gifford said when athletes are dragging on a particular day, he often reminds them that they’re “living the dream,” just like he is.
“I tell people like, yeah, I’m here for work on Sunday—but then I’m getting paid to sit at a baseball game or go to a swim meet…real rough life. I just remind myself that I’m living the dream.”
