Director of Athletics Bob Scalise named Hayes to the position of Strength and Conditioning Coordinator in January of 2002 to fill a void that was unique to Harvard among Division I programs. Hayes, who possesses undergraduate and graduate degrees from Springfield, had previously worked as an assistant coach at Springfield and D-I Tulsa.

Hayes knew he could not build Harvard’s program by himself, so he begged and pleaded with Harvard for a full-time assistant. Jodi Nash, another Springfield graduate who had worked at five different D-I programs, proved to be the right fit.

“I could not run the program the way it is without Jodi,” Hayes said.

In addition to Jodi, Hayes carries two interns, Scott Lucas and Rick Armstrong. There are now four people to provide assistance when there were none before.

“Every time you walk in, you know exactly what you’re doing,” said captain Angela Ruggiero. “They have at least three people in the gym every time, which is so important to our team, especially to the freshmen who are learning how to lift and do it properly.”

The teams now receive programs specifically suited to their sports. Hayes has instructed the women’s hockey team to perform Olympic lifts to build their explosive power and first-step quickness to the puck.

“They’re strong, very athletic young ladies, and we’re going to challenge them with what we do,” Hayes said. “We’ve got to raise the bar. This is best hockey team in the country. To make them better athletes we’ve got to challenge their bodies with sport-specific programs.”

Because of safety concerns, such difficult programs simply would not be possible without the supervision of the current staff. In Stone’s words, all the programs are gone over with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they are safe.

“They’re not in here without a strength coach,” Hayes said. “We bring them through the program from the warm-up to the core workout to everything they do. It’s fully supervised. We want to create a fun, productive and safe environment.”

Such difficult workouts during the offseason have become more significant as college women’s hockey has become more competitive.

“We’re not the biggest team in the league but we try to play with our strength as opposed to just our raw size,” Ruggiero said. “When you reach those most competitive games, it’s the small but important things that make a difference.”

Thanks to Hayes, Harvard’s strength and conditioning program if finally out of the dark ages.

“[Because] we never had a strength and conditioning coach, I didn’t really know this sort of thing existed, to be honest,” said captain Kalen Ingram.

A Summer to Remember

Ingram, Hagerman and Ruggiero were three of the seven women’s hockey players who worked out with Hayes’ program during the summer, along with a couple dozen football players, a dozen men’s hockey players and a few field hockey players.