BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Titans linebacker Colin McCarthy hosted a free Combine Prep Camp for high school football players on Saturday at Quest Sports Center where he and performance coaches provided instruction on how the players could post better numbers in timing and testing drills.
McCarthy created the clinic based on similar ones he attended during his high school days in Florida, and introduced the concept to Middle Tennessee by partnering with the **new sports performance training and instruction facility** that will celebrate its grand opening this week.
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| High school players receive instruction in how to improve their performance in the vertical jump when they attend combines. Click here for photos from the free clinic hosted by Colin McCarthy. |
Players who applied and were recommended by their coaches were eligible to participate. They attempted drills such as the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, broad jump and cone drills like the ones that McCarthy performed in 2011 at the NFL Combine.
After taking initial times and measurements, coaches gave detailed tips and instruction on how to improve performance in each drill before putting the players through another round of testing and timing.
"It's a lot of technique stuff, even from two years ago when I was training for the NFL Combine, there's so much technique involved," McCarthy said. "It's not just raw speed and raw talent and raw athleticism. There's ways to correct certain techniques to make their times better and have overall better scores."
McCarthy said he saw the creation of the camp as a way to help high school players in their effort to pursue college scholarships and continue their education and playing careers.
"(Colleges can) see what numbers they come up with, and if we can get a guy a scholarship, whether it's Division I, D2, D3 to get their education paid for … is awesome," McCarthy said.
Titans Jake Locker and Tim Shaw stopped by in the morning, and Jason McCourty, Zach Brown and Jurrell Casey visited the clinic in the afternoon, sharing experiences they've had in their careers with the high school players.
David Merrell, co-founder and managing partner David Merrell said hosting the clinic fit with Quest Sports Center's model of matching performance training and sport-specific coaching at one location. Former Titans/Oilers great Derrick Mason is partnering with Quest to provide football coaching that will be supplemented by strength and conditioning coaches.
"Having Colin McCarthy's combine clinic at the facility is a great example of what we're trying to accomplish here," Merrell said. "We have kids coming from various high schools and they're going through drills that they're going to have to perform to make it to college and they're going to be tested on these drills, so it's one thing, a lot of times they can go in and get tested, but no one's there to show them how to improve those numbers."
McCarthy said he was impressed by the coachable attitudes the players brought and how focused they were on improving their numbers.
"We've got good kids here, just in the short time that they've been here," McCarthy said. "They're learning. I think they're taking what they're being told. You can see they want to be here. They want to work and, for my sake, it's refreshing to see that."
