UF players feeding off Todd Golden's energy, participation in team lifts
Florida men’s basketball players are not alone as they go through summer workouts. Their new coach, Todd Golden, is also breaking a sweat.
The Gators started their eight-week offseason regimen on June 6 with strength and conditioning coordinator Victor Lopez. When Lopez does on-court conditioning or works in the weight room with the team, Golden joins them.
“He’s a young coach. He lifts with us. I don’t think a lot of coaches do that,” grad transfer Kyle Lofton said of Golden. “He’s pretty strong. I didn’t know he could do pull ups. He does everything we do, basically.”
What does Golden’s involvement mean to him and his teammates?
“It just shows that he’s willing to be with us,” Lofton said. “He doesn’t have to do that. He can be in his office. He wants to be with us and learn us and we can learn him.”
Fifth-year senior guard Myreon Jones, who’s on his third head coach in three seasons (one at Penn State, two at UF), told FloridaGators.com he’s never had a coach lift with the team. For Golden, working out with his players goes a long way in getting them to buy in to his program.
“To me, it’s everything. It’s part of what makes me the coach I am, in terms of being a little on the younger side,” Golden told FloridaGators.com. “With my coaching philosophy, I look at myself at these guys’ captain. I need to be a great leader for them and I need to let them have a great understanding of what we expect from them, and the best way for me to express and articulate that is to be out there — on the court, in the weight room, wherever — with them.
“You’ll rarely see me not involved. I’m not saying my coaches aren’t going to coach a lot, but I’m going to be in the mix a lot and talking a lot more. The more these guys understand how much I care about this, about them, and how important this has to be, I believe they’ll go harder.”
Lofton is one of six new pieces on the 2022-23 roster who committed to play for Golden. He admitted that UF wasn’t even one of his top schools prior to his official visit last month.
What specifically drew Lofton to Florida’s first-year coach?
“His energy,” he said of Golden. “Just his spirit walking around the gym. It reminds me of a big brother.”
Jones added, “There’s just this energy about him. I think he’s kind of like a kid, but in a good way. You can tell he’s a young dude, the way he relates to us, with joking around, laughing, smiling and even trying to shoot against us. You just enjoy being around him.”
