By Ziaire Ferrell & Emma Deo
After graduating from Plattsburgh State in 1995, head strength and conditioning coach Brett Willmott simply could not stay away.
Willmott serves as the associate head track and field coach at Plattsburgh State, while working with each team as a strength and conditioning coach year-round.
Willmott’s love of coaching began at a young age as both of his parents were educators. His mother was a second grade teacher and his father was a physical education teacher who coached at Elba Central School in western New York. Willmott said that attending Plattsburgh State expanded his love for the sport and led him to come back and become a coach.
Willmott has been back at Plattsburgh State for four years, and said that the team has seen tremendous growth in that time period.
“This is a tribute to our junior/senior leadership and success. With that, it is something that more incoming athletes desire. They all have a love for the sport and eagerness to aspire to SUNYAC, regional, or NCAA levels,” Willmott wrote in an email.
Willmott’s coaching journey did not begin here. He began his career as an assistant at Plattsburgh State from 1996 to 1999 and then transitioned into the head coach position for the SUNY New Paltz cross country and track and field teams until 2003. At SUNY New Paltz, Willmott coached nine SUNYAC champions.
Beginning in 2000, Willmott began working with the U.S. Olympic Skeleton Team as a strength, conditioning and push coach, seeing some of his athletes compete with Team USA at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Willmott also spent nine years at the Division I level as the associate head coach of the University of Vermont Catamounts track and field squad. During his tenure in Burlington, his student-athletes broke 50 school records, won 22 individual conference championships, and earned 123 All-America East honors.
Prior to returning to his alma mater, Willmott also led the cross country and track and field programs at SUNY Potsdam and Oneonta. As head coach at Oneonta, he led his runners to their first-ever NCAA championship appearance.
As a runner, Willmott said he was always in the middle of the pack. This helped him recognize how athletes’ different skill levels contribute to a team’s success.
“I tend to focus on the learning progression or teaching model per event…For example, if a hurdler has a key performance indicator that we are working toward, and misses it, we can then go back to the hurdle race, identify the correction needed and address the key piece in practice,” Willmott wrote.
Willmott said coaching a team at this level comes with many challenges like mentoring athletes who are building skill and are important contributors to the program, honing in the skills of team members who are moderately capable and motivated to becoming successful and tending to members who are high scorers on the team.
Willmott said that it is important to utilize the team’s setbacks as a way to launch his players to keep going. He said a point of emphasis for his team is that human performance can be challenged as long as it is well planned.
“Loving the sport is important, but success comes down to how well athletes take care of themselves,” Willmott wrote.
Willmott said that his goals for the years to come at Plattsburgh State are to push the team to greater heights, helping more athletes qualify for SUNYACs, regionals, and the NCAA championships.
When the spikes come off, Willmott said his primary goal is to ensure all athletes leave the program with valuable lessons about discipline, resilience and personal growth.
“We want to build on what we’ve accomplished and keep raising the bar,” Willmott wrote.
