Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
The New York Giants have hired Aaron Wellman and here are four things to know about the executive director of player performance.
The New York Giants hired Aaron Wellman as their new executive director of player performance on Tuesday.
Wellman replaces Craig Fitzgerald, who was the Giants’ director of strength and performance the past two seasons under head coach Brian Daboll. Fitzgerald recently accepted the same position at the University of Florida.
Here are four quick things to know about Wellman
The New York Giants have hired Joel Thomas as their running backs coach and Aaron Wellman as their executive director of player performance.
The New York Giants continued filling staff vacancies on Tuesday and put a cap on their hunt for a new running backs coach and a new executive director of player performance.
The team officially announced the hire of Joel Thomas as their running backs coach, replacing Jeff Nixon, who left to coach the offense at Syracuse.
Thomas had been the New Orleans Saints’ running backs coach since 2015, overseeing the likes of Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram. Prior to his time in The Big Easy, Thomas spent 13 years coaching at the college level, including a stint as Washington’s co-head coach (offense).
Thomas takes over an uncertain running back situation for the Giants. Saquon Barkley is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in March and has once again expressed a desire to avoid the franchise tag. For the first time, his future with the team is very much in doubt.
Meanwhile, the Giants also announced the hire of Aaron Wellman as their executive director of player performance, replacing Craig Fitzgerald, who left for Florida in December.
If you recognize Wellman’s name it’s because he spent four years as the Giants’ strength and conditioning coach under both Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur. During that time, the Giants were among the most-injured teams in the league.
Wellman left the Giants following the 2019 season and joined Indiana as their senior assistant athletic director for football performance.
In addition to his time with the Giants and Indiana, Wellman also had stints at Ball State University (2004-2008), San Diego State University (2009-2010), and the University of Michigan (2011-2014).
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The New York Giants were apparently caught off guard by Aaron Wellman’s decision to take the Indiana job.
The New York Giants and head coach Joe Judge had finally begun to feel settled after compiling their staff and weathering a brief storm in which Bret Bielema was drawing college interest, but that newfound peace exited stage left over the weekend as strength and conditioning coordinator Aaron Wellman departed for Indiana.
Wellman’s decision to leave apparently came as a complete surprise to the Giants and Judge, who are now left looking to fill another position on their staff mere days before the start of the new league year.
Joe Judge and the Giants have an opening they did not foresee, as Aaron Wellman, the strength and conditioning coach, is leaving to fill the same role at Indiana University, his alma mater, The Post confirmed.
This came as a surprise to Judge and the Giants. Wellman, hired by Ben McAdoo in 2016 and retained by Pat Shurmur and Judge, oversaw a transformation to the entire training operation, both in the offseason and during the season. As a result, the Giants were a healthier team after Wellman arrived than they were before he came aboard.
Ironically, the chain reaction that led to Wellman leaving East Rutherford also loosely involved the Giants.
A position at Alabama opened up when Scott Cochran left for Georgia, but prior to signing on with the Bulldogs, Cochran tried to land a job with the Giants to no avail. From there, Indiana’s strength and conditioning coach, David Ballou, took the Alabama job, creating an opening in Indiana.
It’s a small world, isn’t it?
From here, the Giants front office, Joe Judge and senior vice president of medical services and head athletic trainer, Ronnie Barnes, will get to work on finding a replacement for Wellman.
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Strength and conditioning coach Aaron Wellman is leaving the New York Giants to join Indiana University.
The New York Giants had finally appeared set with their coaching and assistant hires, but now it’s back to the drawing board as they’ll need to find a new strength and conditioning coordinator.
On Saturday night, multiple reports surfaced that Aaron Wellman, who has spent the past four seasons in East Rutherford, has been lured away from the Giants and will join Indiana as their next strength coach.
Can confirm Wellman is leaving the #Giants for Indiana. He came on four years ago on heels of NYG struggling to mitigate/manage injuries. Made a huge difference immediately in 2016. https://t.co/W9LkpIGL20
— Pat Leonard (@PLeonardNYDN) March 8, 2020
After joining the Giants, Wellman completely revamped their program and helped bring the team’s strength and conditioning into the 21st century with the advent of GPS trackers, drones, nutritional plans, workout plans, machines and a new recovery schedule.
Initially hired by Ben McAdoo, Wellman stayed on through the transition to Pat Shurmur and then again, at least initially, to Joe Judge.
Wellman graduated from IU with a master’s degree in 1998 and had spent nearly 20 years coaching at the Division I collegiate level before joining the Giants. Some of his stops included Notre Dame, Michigan, San Diego State University and Ball State University.
At Indiana, Wellman will replace David Ballou, who recently left for the same position at Alabama.
As for the Giants, they still have assistant strength and conditioning coach Thomas Stallworth, director of performance nutrition Pratik Patel and performance manager/assistant strength coach Sam Coad on staff.
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The New York Giants are reportedly adding both Kevin Sherrer and Sam Coad to Joe Judge’s coaching staff.
The New York Giants continued staff building on Saturday, reportedly adding two more members to Joe Judge’s team and, in the process, letting it be known that Aaron Wellman will remain in charge as the strength and conditioning coach.
The first addition came by way of Sam Coad, who will join the Giants as a performance manager/assistant strength coach. He will serve under Wellman.
Minor change under Joe Judge. Sam Coad was hired as Performance Manager/Assistant Strength coach. The strength and conditioning program remains run by Aaron Wellman, extremely well respected who has now stretched to three coaching regimes.
— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) January 25, 2020
Along with Coad, the Giants are also reportedly adding Tennessee inside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Kevin Sherrer.
Inside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Kevin Sherrer is expected to leave the Vols to join the staff of the NFL’s New York Giants for new coach Joe Judge, sources told GoVols247 on Saturday night.
. . .
Sherrer, who came over from Georgia to be part of the initial staff Jeremy Pruitt hired when he became the head coach at Tennessee a little more than two years ago, coached the inside linebackers the past two seasons he’s handled a couple of different other roles, first as the defensive coordinator in 2018 before the hire of Derrick Ansley prompted the Vols to shift Sherrer over to special teams duties.
He was one of the highest earners on Tennessee’s staff with a $700,000 salary and still had another year to run on his contract, which was set to run through the end of January 2021.
The 46-year-old Sherrer played tight end at Alabama and has both a Bachelor’s in Physical Education and a Master’s in Higher Education Administration. He’s spent time on the staff of Nick Saban in Alabama and with Georgia in 2017 before arriving in Tennessee.
While at Georgia, Sherrer worked directly with current Giants linebacker Lorenzo Carter.
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