The CEO/Founder of BFS is honored for his lifetime achievements in helping athletes achieve physical superiority

Each year the Professional Football Strength and Conditioning Coaches Society holds an annual awards banquet. This year’s event, on February 23 at the Westin Hotel in Indianapolis, was especially meaningful to BFS: Founder and CEO Dr. Greg Shepard was presented the society’s President’s Award for his lifelong achievements and contributions to this profession. This is an appropriate award, as Coach Shepard was involved in the strength coaching profession long before it was a profession.

Coach Shepard has always been involved in strength training and has been involved with many pioneers in this area. In the mid 1960s he trained with the San Diego Chargers, who at the time were at the forefront of weight training for pro football. Shepard competed in powerlifting, winning the National Collegiate Championships, and was a member of an Olympic weightlifting team in Salzburg, Austria. Although this background helped form Coach Shepard’s ideas about optimal weight training, his thinking took a paradigm shift in the late 1960s when he started training with George Frenn.

One of the best hammer throwers in the country, George had a best competitive squat of 843 pounds – long before the days of supersuits and other special supportive equipment. George was so far ahead of everyone else that Coach Shepard spent many summers in the Los Angeles area to be near Frenn and pick his brain.

The BFS “Secret” Training alongside Frenn were some of the best throwers in the country, all who weighed an average of The amazing coaches honored at the 15th Annual PFSCCS Banquet: Chris Carlisle, USC; Jon Torine, Indianapolis Colts; Tony Dungy, presenter; Rusty Jones, Chicago Bears; Tommy Fabacher, John Curtis Christian School; Dr. Greg Shepard, BFS. Go to www. prostrenghtcoach.com to learn more about these awards and recipients.

270 pounds and ran 4.6 to 4.7 in the forty. “They were far bigger, faster and stronger than the pro football players of that era,” says Shepard. “I wanted these types of athletes on my football team.” The “secret,” as Shepard likes to call it, was simple but quite radical at the time: “Stretch, lift hard with free weights, vary your workouts, and concentrate on the big multi-joint lifts that develop the legs and hips. You’ve got to do that, plus add sprinting and jump training.” And there, in a nutshell, is the BFS philosophy. MAY/JUNE 2007 Rob Rowbotham, was To prove the supewith the Utah Jazz for riority of his system, 16 years.”

And with Shepard took over as the addition of John head football coach at a Rowbothan as BFS vice high school in Idaho, a president, the BFS team school that had a football has developed a successprogram that was – well, ful exercise equipment terrible. “I inherited a business with a 30-year team that was 0-6 and history of offering had lost homecoming affordable, high-quality 72-0; the kids were so In a photo taken in 1984, Coach Shepard poses with BFS Senior Vice products and services dispirited that they just President Rick Anderson (left) and President Bob Rowbotham. BFS that help athletes win. quit, forfeiting their last has been helping athletes win for over 30 years!

Today, BFS has three games. We trained extended its reputation beyond football ‘How can you take a disaster school hard, and the following year our team with its focus on the unification of all and turn it around in just one year?’ won the county championships and athletic programs, along with promotscored a fantastic 29-16 victory over the When I said it was our weight training program, they would ask me to come to ing safety and character education for team that had beat us 72-0. And this is their schools and show them how to do all student-athletes. In fact, each year despite the fact that the opposing team it.

That was how our BFS clinics began, BFS clinicians schedule more than 400 had a school enrollment of 1,600 kids seminars and are keynote speakers in and those schools that I worked with to our 850!” nearly 50 conventions! It’s quite an also saw dramatic turnarounds in their Shepard then took over the organization – and phenomenon – that Granger High School team in Salt Lake programs.” Coach Shepard started with BFS. Shepard moved on to become City.

This team was also struggling, BFS thanks the Professional the strength coach at Brigham Young having won only two ballgames in four Football Strength and Conditioning years, but Shepard achieved what is still University and, in December 1981, Coaches Society for recognizing for the Utah Jazz. At that time he considered one of the most dramatic Dr. Greg Shepard’s achievements was the only strength coach in the turnarounds in the history of Utah. with the 2006 President’s Award. NBA. Says Shepard, “I, along with “This got everyone’s attention,” says Congratulations, Coach! my BFS partners Rick Anderson and Shepard.

“Coaches were asking me, Coach Shepard was a member of an Olympic lifting team in Salzburg, Austria, and coached a collegiate national champion team in powerlifting.

As the head strength coach at BYU, Coach Shepard worked with many outstanding athletes. Some of his success stories include Paul Howard, a 10-year veteran of the Denver Broncos, and NCAA rushing leader Pete Van Valkenburg.

In December, 1981, Coach Shepard was the first strength coach in the NBA. Here he is shown working with Ike Austin of the Utah Jazz.

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From BFS Magazine — May/June 2007. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).