Behind every sports program in college, there are many people who you don’t see either on the field or the court. They are the unsung heroes that work behind the scenes to get the athletes in the best shape possible.
Payne Kesler is one of those individuals as he is tasked with training many of the sports programs at UNC in the weight room. Kesler, who is a University of Northern Colorado alumni, serves as the Director of Sports Performance for Olympic Sports and has held the position for the past couple of years. He works with a handful of different teams at the school with two in particular being the baseball and volleyball team.
In college, Payne worked towards his undergraduate degree in Sports and Exercise Science but originally was planning on being a history major. After finding out about the SES programs he took a couple of classes and made it his new major.
“I took a couple classes in it and I was like yeah this is really cool I made it my major,” said Kesler decked out in UNC volleyball gear. “When I made it my major I found out you could be a strength and conditioning coach and I said to myself that I like the weight room and I like lifting and helping people get better so I started to pursue that.”
Come Kesler’s senior year, he had the opportunity to intern at the Air Force Academy and work with the football team. After graduating, he became a personal trainer but felt unfulfilled in that role describing it as a sales job.
“I always felt bad because these people are coming [to me] because they either don’t know what to do, they think they’re so far gone that they can’t do it on their own. It’s a hard thing to commit to and people get upset when they don’t see the results they want.”
Kesler eventually started volunteering at the school in 2017 and went back to school to work towards his masters. He then took a graduate assistant position a year later and would work his way up the ladder through various other positions in the strength training department that would lead him to his current one.
In regards to moving on one day from UNC to a new school or to the professional level, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else and feels college is where he is meant to be.
If you are like Payne and want to walk the path of a strength coach, some advice he would offer is to get out there and intern at different places. Come into it with an open mindset and be willing to learn as much as you can.
