With football in a nebulous position and the recruiting process in a relative holding pattern, we at Golden Bear Report are looking to do interviews wherever we can. This week, we got Cal head strength and conditioning coach Torre Becton on to talk about how he got to Cal and his philosophies around keeping guys healthy and durable.

This is the second part of the interview with Becton.

TT: You handled the freshman integration at both Washington and USC, when you have kids coming from high school programs that obviously don’t have the same type of lifting programs that you guys do, what do you have to do to transition them?

TB: The big thing is that you get these kids in the Pac-12, and any of the Power 5 conferences, they were really good players in high school, and a lot of times when they were really good players in high school, you don’t put as much into the physical development as far as the strength and conditioning program. I took a lot of pride being assigned, petitioning for and receiving that role, it gave me ownership, it gave me an opportunity to experiment to some degree, to fine tune my coaching style to figure out to some degree what’s the best way to get to these kids, what’s the best way to motivate them, what’s the best way to get the most out of them, because not everybody is motivated by the same things. (It was about learning) how to push kids, how to challenge kids, how to back off and give them a hug when needed, to kick them in the rear when needed, and while I was an assistant, it was learning to be a head guy.

At Washington, I had five seasons of that, and at USC, I had one more year of doing that.

TT: How did getting hired at Cal happen for you?

TB: It happened as a phone call, I remember my wife and I were headed home in LA from a recruiting dinner, we had just gone to a recruiting dinner, and I take a lot of pride in being able to recruit, being able to help the program however I can. We were at a recruiting dinner at USC, and I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize, so I didn’t take it, but when I got in the car, I returned the call, and it was coach Wilcox. We had a conversation, he told me he was about to be the head football coach at Cal, and he said that he thought really highly of how he saw me work at Washington, and he said that a lot of people that he trusted in coaching and strength and conditioning confirmed what he thought. He said, not wanting to haggle, not wanting to ‘I’ll bring you in with five other guys,’ he was like ‘I’ve kinda got a good idea of what I want to do here, if you want it, the job is yours, if you don’t, I’ll move on to the next guy.’

So, that worked for me (laughs), it was cool with me, to not have to haggle, this is what we’re going to do, giving me the information to make a decision.

TT: How out of the blue was that for you, did you have any inkling he was going to call you?

TB: Not really, I knew that there was going to be some opportunity, at USC we had just won the Rose Bowl, a rising tide raises all ships, we had done well and when you do well, you anticipate that. Everybody knew I had head strength coach potential, so at that point in your career you live where you are, I was committed to being in my role at USC until I wasn’t. When an opportunity came to make that move, it was a good opportunity, it fit me, my wife, and at the time we had one daughter, it worked for us and we dove in. We knew it was going to be a great opportunity for us.

TT: I see a lot of guys that Cal’s bringing in and they’re pretty hard-working in terms of getting out and putting in the work, is it easier to integrate them into the program when you have guys like that, or is it still something where kids are kids and they haven’t been at this level yet?

TB: Well kids are kids, but I think we all know and understand that Cal’s a bit different. We have to go high academics, and that’s not a knock on anybody’s grades coming out of high school, but I wasn’t serious enough about school coming out of high school to have the grades to get into a place like Cal. So I think that was a lack of maturity on my part, and what you have to do here is you have to get certain kids who view the process and academics a certain way. Many times, because those guys do view academics a certain way, they’re split, as far as ‘what am I doing to become a better football player versus what am I doing to become a better student.’ There’s a lot of other kids that are just focused on football, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to do as well as I can, go to every camp, do all of these things and put more eggs in the football basket,’ and the unique thing about the kids we bring here is that they spread themselves with a bit more balance, ‘I have to work hard in football and I have to work hard with my school work.’

They stay on top of that, and those kids come in, you give them a little more structure from the strength and conditioning perspective, put a little bit more emphasis on the developmental aspect of them as a player, and like I say in recruiting, you slow cook them. You slow cook these guys so you can get them in, integrate them, get the most out of them, train them, build them up so they can be healthy, so their bodies can withstand the rigors of the sport and the responsibility.

TT: What are you able to do as far as recruiting goes right now?

TB: I’m able to have some limited contact, just do as much as I can to help the program out. Coach Wilcox always makes the point, he never excludes me from recruiting talks. He makes it very clear to prospective student-athletes and parents that coach Becton can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s a matter of what you choose to do, and I appreciate the support he throws my way. He always puts me in a position where I’m able to articulate and express that strength and conditioning is a big part of what we do. It’s a big part of the structure, organization, discipline, building, supporting and maintaining our culture. It’s something you have to do, it’s mandatory, it’s something you have to participate in, in the way that we’re setting the standard.

The cool thing about being in year four, as a strength and conditioning staff, is that you don’t have to push hard work as much. All our kids know that hard work is a given. It’s easy for us to push to the prospective (recruits) now, and when they come on visits our guys tell them, ‘you have to work hard, you have to do things a certain way because our culture is so important to us and so important to us having success and to the success we’re going to have.’ Recruits get a good dose of that when they’re coming in, and they know ‘if I’m going to commit to Cal, it ain’t going to be me doing my own thing, it’s me being what this team is.’ Like coach Toler said, ‘it’s not who you bring in, it’s what you bring them into, and I’ve always held that near and dear, it’s what you’re bringing those kids into, as far as the environment that’s going to help them grow.

TT: When we’ve talked before, you’ve said that coach Wilcox has given you a level of autonomy that you hadn’t had before, how much does that autonomy mean to you in terms of being able to shape a program?

TB: It goes into why I became a strength and conditioning coach. I could’ve been a defensive line coach or a linebackers coach and you’ll get a room, you can impact and influence 13 guys. I wanted to have that impact across the whole team. That’s what being a strength and conditioning coach for Justin Wilcox has allowed me to do, because coach Wilcox is one of those guys that says ‘I’m going to manage this, I brought you in to do this, you’re going to manage that.’ It brings me a great deal of pride that he entrusted me to be his strength and conditioning coach, knowing that I have such a prominent role on the staff. Having to be responsible for the physical development of these guys, being responsible for the level of conditioning to be ready to practice, being responsible to some degree, along with other good habits by the kids, of how durable they are. Those types of things I take pride in.

I’m not one of those strength coaches that gets excited by ‘hey, we had twelve kids that could bench press 400 pounds.’ I’m more excited because we had a total of 80% of our team that was able to play 85-90% of the snaps throughout a season. That’s what it’s all about, playing the game at a certain level and the durability it takes to play this game at a certain level. Things like our guys not missing practice, not missing games, certain things like that, that’s what I take a lot of pride in.

It’s a really huge deal that coach Wilcox gives me the autonomy that he does, and I take a lot of pride in it.

Previous Installments

Justin Wilcox, Part One | Justin Wilcox, Part Two | Charlie Ragle, Part One | Charlie Ragle, Part Two | Peter Sirmon, Part One | Peter Sirmon, Part Two | Aristotle Thompson, Part One | Aristotle Thompson, Part Two | Angus McClure, Part One | Angus McClure, Part Two | Tim DeRuyter, Part One | Tim DeRuyter, Part Two | Andrew Browning, Part One | Andrew Browning, Part Two | Burl Toler, Part One | Burl Toler, Part Two | Bill Musgrave | Marques Tuiasosopo, Part One | Marques Tuiasosopo, Part Two | Torre Becton, Part One