PREP SPORTS: Duran building up NorthWood strength program

Jul. 12—NAPPANEE — The number of strength and conditioning coaches continues to grow in northern Indiana, making it one of the hotbeds of hiring for the profession.

One Northern Lakes Conference school that recently joined the trend is NorthWood, who hired Servando Duran as their new strength coach in late March. Duran officially took over the role June 1, organizing and leading the Panthers' summer workouts since.

"It's been awesome," said Duran of his time at NorthWood so far. "It's me putting together all of the things I've learned from the coaches I've worked for and the athletes I've experienced and trained the last three years. It's been great. Having the responsibility of maintaining the weight room how I want it ... it's been exciting to grow my own culture in a new setting and in a new weight room."

Although only 26 years old, Duran has plenty of experience leading weight rooms at the collegiate level.

Originally from Chicago, Duran attended St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, where he was also a member of the Fighting Bees' football team. After graduating in 2018 with a bachelors' degree in exercise science, Duran did his graduate program studies at St. Ambrose as well.

It was during his fifth year on campus where he was given an opportunity to be the head strength coach for the football program, something that is rare for people of Duran's age.

"Right out of the gate, usually you take an internship and that's your first experience," Duran said. "Typically, you're not running a team, so being able to run my own team early on was awesome. To be able to transition from being a teammate and friend to these kids to their coach ... it was a really great experience to start my career."

Once he finished up his graduate program in exercise physiology, Duran spent the rest of 2019 serving in internship roles, one at the University of Minnesota and another at the University of Central Florida. In January 2020, Duran was hired as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Akron in Ohio.

In the summer of 2020, Duran was named the interim head of the strength and conditioning program at Akron before taking on a new role at Barton College in North Carolina. While at Barton the last two years, Duran was the assistant director of sports performance and the director of applied sports science.

When the NorthWood position became available, it provided Duran and his then-fiancé, Morgan, a chance to move closer to his family in Chicago. The two just got married on June 4, making the end of May and beginning of June a busy time for the Duran's.

"I'm pretty settled in now," Duran said. "I'm happy to be here, and everyone's been great."

This will be the first time Duran is working with high school athletes, and he's already noticed some difference between them and college students.

"At the college level, it's really winning and success-driven," Duran said. "If you don't get 'X' number of wins or 'X' number of championships, some people might lose their job and coaching changes are going to happen. At the high school level, it's not necessarily like that. You're trying to provide these kids a good experience in the weight room and teaching them lifelong lessons, whether it's learning how to lift correctly or team-building — how is that going to carry over to your sports teams and outside home life? Just the expectations every day are different."

NorthWood joins area schools like Goshen, Concord, Wawasee, Warsaw and Penn to have a specific strength coach leading the workouts. Duran sees his role as an essential one within a high school athletic program.

"I think it should be mandatory that every school has a certified, full-time strength coach," Duran said. "These kids need it even more than at the college level. The maturity level (in high school) isn't there yet; kids don't know how to understand their body and their space. They need somebody that's going to help teach them and master different moving patterns; help teach them healthy techniques that's going to carry over and translate over on to the field or on to the court."

While Duran has high hopes for what the NorthWood strength program can become, he's also noticed gains made in his short time with the school so far.

"My athletic director (Roman Smith) and everybody is on board to create something big in this department," Duran said. "I'm excited for the future, but this first summer alone, we've gotten so far and made a lot of progress."

Austin Hough can be reached at austin.hough@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2360. Follow him on Twitter at @AustinHoughTGN.