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cavalier sports 10 CAVALIER CORNER On Jan. 9, UVA announced that head coach Bronco Mendenhall had hired strength coach Shawn Griswold to be the team's new director of football development and per- formance. Griswold, a 19-year veteran of the profession, comes to Charlottesville after six years at Arizona State with previous stops in Pittsburgh, Tulsa and Utah State. We caught up with Griswold on his first day on the job to ask him five questions about his new position. Cavalier Corner: How did this opportunity with UVA come about? Griswold: "Keith Thomson, who is one of the assistant athletic trainers, was with me at Tulsa and he mentioned my name to Coach Mendenhall. And [outside linebackers coach] Kelly Poppinga, I coached him in college at Utah State for the short time he was there. "Also, Ricky Brumfield, the new special teams coach, I actually coached when he was a receiver at Utah State, too. So there were several connections there." Cavalier Corner: What do you think made you the right fit for this role at UVA? Griswold: "I think Coach Mendenhall and I are very similar. He's obviously been building this thing for the last couple of years and I like this kind of challenge. These are the jobs I like. "The expectations he has for his staff and his players as far as having no excuses and expecting to win, that's the way it is for me, too. It's like I told the team today, I'm a firm believer that you get what you ask for. So when you set the expectations high, good things come. "… They've made a huge commitment to sports performance and the strength and conditioning department here, which is great and will obviously help us take the next step to not only playing in the postseason but pushing to dominate the ACC and play for championships." Cavalier Corner: What are some of your goals for the players over the course of winter conditioning? Griswold: "The big thing is to make some huge strength gains. This is still a pretty young team so that's a big focus. "My philosophy has always been that to win you need to be dominant all four quar- ters, so we'll do a lot of pulling from the floor, a lot of squat rack, we're going to move a lot of weight, and we're going to try to be as strong as possible. "Then, obviously, you also need to be both physical but also healthy. You need to be in great shape." Cavalier Corner: What did you learn at ASU that you think applies to the ACC? Griswold: "Pretty much everyone runs up-tempo in the Pac-12 so you've got to be in great shape, so we'll blend both of those things. There are great, great kids here. At the end of the day, it's not just about football for me. "That's why I got into the strength side of it a long, long time ago. My strength coach taught me a lot about being a great man and a husband and a father. "On top of winning football games, we want to help our guys succeed in life, which is the ultimate game." Cavalier Corner: What are the challenges of taking over midstream in a rebuild the way you are? Griswold: "The discipline and structure and programming were very good. But just like when a new coach comes in and changes defenses or whatever, the same is true for a strength coach. "I've got a program that I've developed over basically 20 years of doing it. There will be some carryover I'm sure here and there, something that we'll do that they've done before, but I'm going to drop my program in there and roll." — Brad Franklin five questions Director of Football Development & Performance Shawn Griswold Griswold, who spent the last six years at Arizona State, has amassed 19 years of experience in his field. PHOTO BY JIM DAVES/COURTESY UVA