Florida head coach Jon Sumrall didn’t mince words when discussing the importance of the team’s strength and conditioning program.
“I’m a firm believer that the culture of your program is established and reinforced in the weight room and in the training room,” Sumrall said. “Tough teams win. Tough people win in this game. That’s what you’re creating in the weight room. It’s about clearly getting bigger, faster, stronger, but it’s also about some shared sacrifice.”
Enter Rusty Whitt, Florida’s director of football performance, who brings more than 25 years of strength and conditioning experience to Gainesville.
The 54-year-old embodies toughness, shaped by a decorated career in the United States Army Special Forces. Whitt served as a Senior Special Forces Communications Sergeant with the 10th Special Forces Group from August 2003 to January 2009, deploying to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom V and VI.
During that time, Whitt developed and implemented a comprehensive pre-deployment conditioning program for his Special Forces team, both prior to and throughout those deployments. His service earned him a Combat Infantryman Badge, two Iraq Campaign Medals, and an Army Commendation Medal with Valor.
Whitt’s military experience has left a lasting impact on his coaching philosophy.
“The main thing is the standards,” Whitt said. “The standards that we expect out of our team and out of our individual players, Football is a game of high standards, and it’s an accountability contest.”
The Azle, Texas, native recalled a moment from his first day of Army basic training that quickly reinforced the importance of accountability, discipline and standards.
“In the very first day of basic training, we’re standing in a company in infantry basic at Fort Bend in Georgia, there’s 50 guys in each platoon, and there’s four platoons, so there’s 200 guys standing there. And I’m in the very front row, wearing our BDUs with a canteen between my legs, and we’re waiting for something to happen, and I hear, ‘This mother-bleeper has a popped collar!’ His collar was turned up. There was a guy across the corner in the other platoon — one guy had his collar addressed wrong, and that was 8:00 in the morning. We bear-crawled until noon around a cinder track,” Whitt shared.
“They want you to understand the importance of accountability and having standards,” Whitt added. “I’m going to bring standards and accountability to this program. My staff that I’ve brought with me; they do an exceptional job of that. And the guys that we absorbed here understand it and we’re all going to be on the same page.”
The challenges Whitt faced in the United States Army gave him a clarity about resilience and purpose, lessons he now passes on to his players.
“I learned a lot about what a quitter looks like, what resignation in somebody looks like, and it usually begins with body language and complaining,” Whitt said. “I learned a lot about myself and the urgency and desire to exist and to last and to mean something. I’m trying to get that instilled into our players at a young age.”
One way Florida’s new strength staff is emphasizing accountability is by incorporating player-led segments into its winter workouts.
“Coach Sumrall says it every day, that good teams are coach-led and great teams are player-led,” Whitt said. “We had a finisher 30 minutes ago at the defensive lift, and the offensive lift. It was a finisher, an abdominal exercise that had to be player-led. So, y’all do it, you execute it, if you do it wrong, start over. But we’re going to give you guys the reins.”
“There’s self-confidence to be taught by that, you know, they learn self-confidence in being vocal or leading their teammates, they try to spread that around,” Whitt added.
With NIL and revenue sharing on the rise, coaching in today’s game comes with a unique set of challenges. Players can sometimes develop a sense of entitlement, which can lead to locker room issues. For Whitt, however, that hasn’t changed the way he coaches.
“I don’t change the way I coach them. I have never. Always been demanding, whether it’s wherever I’ve been. I don’t bring the money up, either, like, ‘You get paid more than me.’ I don’t do that. That’s their business, that’s their livelihood. But I am going to demand they’re going to work like a pro,” Whitt said.
“I just want to make sure that any entitlement in this program is squashed out,” Whitt added. “I just have a blanket standard that you have to meet. I know this from experience: the guys don’t respond to being singled out, ‘You’re spoiled or you’re entitled.’ It’s, ‘hey, as a culture, we’re going to make sure this is not an issue.’”
Things are off to a strong start in Gainesville, with Florida’s players embracing Whitt’s demanding coaching style.
“You never know what you’re going to get into with a new team,” Whitt said. “And the players that were here understand the history of this program and the expectations. So we have really received no pushback. They want to go. They want to do hard things together. So it’s been good so far.”