Leave no doubt. That is what Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterback Tom Brady did win he won his record setting seventh Super Bowl last Sunday. Without a doubt he is the best quarterback in history at any level. The 43-year-old quarterback from northern California and the University of Michigan proved once again that he can make a gigantic difference on almost any team he plays on.
Brady deserves a lot of credit for Tampa Bay’s turn around, but the real hero is their speed and conditioning coach Roger Kingdom. Kingdom is a two Olympic Gold Medalist in the 110 high hurdles who set the World Record in that event in 1989 in Zurich Switzerland at 12.92. He won the gold in 1984 in Los Angeles and in 1988 at Seoul, Korea. He also played football at the University of Pittsburgh for two seasons with NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino.
He’s been coaching football and track and field in high school, college and the NFL for the last 20 years. He started working with Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians in 2002 when they were both with the Cleveland Browns. If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw how fast Tampa Bay’s team was on offense, special teams and especially on defense.
Because Tampa Bay plays a 3-4-4 defense instead of a traditional 4-3-4 defense with four lineman, three linebackers and four defensive backs they were able to stop Kansas City’s explosive offense. The most impressive thing about their defense was they were able match the Chiefs speedy offense step for step. Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill is the fastest and quickest receiver in the NFL and Mecole Hardman is also a speedster, but Tampa’s defense shut them down.
“My role is to come in and make sure these athletes are very efficient at their peak performance and we want to get their maximum speed out of them without burning them out,” said the 58-year-old Kingdom during an interview last year. “Typically when you look at football players on the field they are very tight. When they are running it looks like they are carrying extra weight. If we can teach them how to be a little bit more relaxed to be able to run past people or chasing people.”
The Buccaneers got in the starting blocks with the Chiefs and beat them to the finish line last Sunday. The real hero of the game last Sunday was Roger Kingdom.
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