Feb 15, 2016Lehigh Baseball Experiences “The Program”
To challenge themselves both physically and mentally, baseball players at Lehigh University participated in a weekend-long military training program, as reported in an article at thebrownandwhite.com. Called “The Program,” it was created by former Marine Eric Kapitulik.
“The workouts concentrated on team building and leadership development, which is going to pay off for us in the long run,” junior catcher John Scarr said. “They were grueling tests of our resourcefulness, our will to win and keep fighting.”
The first day consisted of a five-and-a-half hour outdoor workout replete with challenges such as field sprints, army crawls, and crab walks. On the second day, they participated in an exercise called the House of Pain, where team members performed and led each other in 16 different exercises, one of which was actually fighting the instructor.
According to The Program’s website, the workouts are designed to get the team to work together and rely on each other through exhaustion and adversity. When it was all over, the student-athletes felt accomplished, and coaches were proud.
“You can’t even fathom how much it brings your team together until you experience that type of adversity together,” Head Coach Sean Leary said. “This isn’t the only thing you can do to have leadership in your program, this just has to be a piece of the puzzle because it is such a challenge.
“I’m not sure we didn’t celebrate more after day two than we did last year at our championship because we collectively completed a mission,” he added.
