Worth the weights

PULLMAN – Rob Oviatt finally found a weight he couldn’t lift.

So the former Washington State University assistant athletic director did what he’s counseled athletes to do for 27 years: He made a change.

Oviatt, the man in charge of WSU’s weight room as director of physical development, resigned last week after eight years at the school. The reason was simple.

“Physically, I can still do this and I haven’t lost my love for coaching by any means,” Oviatt said Thursday. “However, I just can’t manufacture enough time for my family.”

Oviatt’s family situation is daunting. His wife, Kathleen, lives in Los Angeles. Married previously, Oviatt also has four children ranging in age from early teens to 30 and spread out from North Carolina to Pullman. Add in an 80-year-old dad in Ohio and “right now I need to step back and put my priorities where we all know they should be.”

Oviatt ran WSU’s weight and conditioning program with a discipline befitting the son of a Marine. And in that room he spent hours helping build some of the Cougars’ best athletes. In the end, that’s what got him.

“When I started out in this,” said Oviatt, 54, “I knew I would have to outwork people to survive in this business. … I knew I was going to have to have a grinder mentality to make it. That’s what I’ve done.

“The only downside to working and grinding for as long as I have, is on the back end, you miss things and you have a few regrets.”

In his 27 years in college coaching, Oviatt, a native of Ohio, has worked at Alabama, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Houston, Oregon State, Kentucky and Louisiana State before he set up shop in Pullman. He was inducted into the USA Strength and Conditioning Coaches Hall of Fame in 2003 and served as president of the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in 2004.

But all that wouldn’t have happened if not for one memorable meeting with former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, Oviatt’s idol while growing up in Wooster, Ohio.

“I was thinking about getting into coaching after my freshman year in college,” Oviatt said, so he decided to see if he could get in to talk with Hayes. Much to his surprise, Hayes granted him an audience.

“I was hoping to get about a minute of his time to ask him about coaching,” Oviatt said. “He gave me time and we talked about coaching. Then he handed me a book that was about an inch thick, hardbound. The title of the book was “Everything I Know about Coaching,” by Woody Hayes.

“I just took it, shook his hand and was walking on air as I left, thinking, ‘Now, I’ve got the bible of coaching if I want to get into coaching.’ ”

When Oviatt opened the book in the parking lot, all 200 pages were blank.

“His point was, ‘I’m Woody Hayes and I don’t know it all,’ ” Oviatt said. “I thought if that’s his attitude with all he’s done, then I’ve got some work to do.”

While doing that work over the next three decades, Oviatt discovered much of what’s written in stone isn’t true.

“I think it’s a myth that kids nowadays aren’t willing to work,” he said. “You hear that all the time. And I don’t buy it. Kids will do anything you ask of them if they see they are physically improving and they know you care about them as people.”

Oviatt, who expects to resurface as a strength coach in the future, also wants to put two other myths to rest: He didn’t quit because he’s so despondent his beloved Cleveland Indians are in such disarray – “If you cheer for them for 40 years like I have, you’re prepared for failure” – or that new football coach Paul Wulff had anything to do with this decision. In fact, Oviatt said, it was the opposite. The new WSU football staff was great to work with and encouraged him to stay.

“Anybody who says this was anything other than my decision, that is absolutely not true,” Oviatt said.

David Lang has been picked as Oviatt’s successor in running WSU’s strength and conditioning program while former Eastern Washington University strength coach Darin Lovat, currently at Boston College, is expected to be named soon to oversee the football program.

But for Oviatt, it all came back to time for family – and to decompress a little.

“This is the first two-a-days I’ve missed in 27 years and I’m sitting here watching ‘Green Acres,’ thinking I need to get in my car and run up there,” Oviatt said. “On the other hand, this is what I needed to do.”