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Galloway Still Going Strong

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By ROY CUMMINGS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 23, 2007

Updated: 09/23/2007 12:12 am

TAMPA - Joey Galloway stands in front of his locker, a red Bucs baseball cap on his head, a smile on his face and a glint in his eye.

He's trying to convince you for what seems like the hundredth time that he's really 28 years old, but a patch of gray stubble on his chin and his weathering skin give him away. So does the Bucs media guide. It says he's 35.

For a split second, you think back to Sunday, when he grabbed a pass from Jeff Garcia and took off like a dragster accelerating down a straightaway, and you pause.

Suddenly, you think, maybe Galloway's not kidding; maybe he really is 28. Something certainly makes him seem much younger.

It's those legs, of course. At 35, they're just not supposed to churn the way they do. At 35, hips aren't supposed to trigger the kind of explosion that Galloway's hips trigger, the kind that makes him look like a fighter plane being launched from an aircraft carrier.

Galloway's do, though, but it's not only because he's been 'blessed' with a freakish genetic makeup that defies his age and all logic. There's more to it than that. A lot more.

Offseason Workouts Key

You're standing on the sideline of an empty football field on a sunny spring day near Galloway's home in Dublin, Ohio. See that man out there, the one with the small parachute harnessed to him? That's Galloway, and this is where the explosion is ignited.

On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays during the offseason, Galloway begins his work day here, running sprints while dragging that parachute behind him. He starts with 30-yard sprints and steadily ratchets up the workout to 100-yard sprints.

The parachute creates resistance that on the shorter sprints improves his ability to explode away from the line of scrimmage. The longer sprints aid his overall speed and give him the ability to outrun almost anyone whose job it is to chase him down on Sunday afternoons in the fall.

After the sprints, Galloway runs a series of pass patterns, but these aren't like the pass patterns you see him run on game days. These have more zigs and zags to them, and because he's still got that parachute on, they improve his ability to run away from defenders after a catch.

'I've been doing this stuff since college,' Galloway says. 'The parachutes, the cutting drills, it's all part of the program. But the No. 1 thing is, I don't get out of shape. A week to two weeks after the season, I'm working out again. I don't allow myself to fall off very far.'

You're in the weight room now. Galloway is the one standing by the free weights, the guy with the headband and the skin-tight T-shirt with the sleeves cut off just above the biceps.

He starts the workout by doing snatches, an exercise where a barbell is lifted from the floor to around arm's length over the head in a single continuous explosive motion. But Galloway never takes the bar over his head. He stops at the shoulders, because he's focusing on his hips. Now he's doing cleans, another barbell exercise where Galloway yanks the bar up to his shoulders by explosively extending his hip, knee and ankle joints in a jumping action. But his feet never leave the ground because, once again, he's concentrating on his hips.

That's where the ability to explode off the line, to burst into another gear faster than most anyone comes from. It comes from the hips. So Galloway spends the majority of his time here doing snatches and hang cleans. They're the exercises he says he 'believes in.'

'He's an explosive player, so everything in his workout regimen is designed to build that explosiveness,' Bucs strength and conditioning coach Mike Morris said. 'Whether he's in the weight room or on the field, it's all predicated on explosion.'

Galloway's Training Guru

You're back on the sideline again, back at the football field, except this is not just any football field. This is Memorial Stadium, home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. See that man over there, the one who looks like he was cut from granite? That's Dave Kennedy. He's the man Galloway believes in.

Galloway tells you that what he doesn't owe to genetics he owes to Kennedy. He's Nebraska's strength and conditioning coach now, but he was at Ohio State when Galloway got there 16 years ago. It was Kennedy who fashioned the training program that Galloway still follows.

He's the one who first put the parachute on Galloway and who first showed him how to focus on his hips in the weight room. He's the one Galloway still calls every other week or so during the offseason just to see if there's something new he's come up with that will help him keep his edge.

Kennedy lives for those calls. He says he often gets as much or more out of them as Galloway does. He'll tell you he's learned as much from Galloway during the years as Galloway has learned from him and that his program wouldn't be as renowned as it is today were it not for Galloway.

'Joey's had a tremendous impact on my program,' Kennedy said. 'We're continually exchanging ideas, and he'll do some of the things we're doing and come back and give us feedback on it. There's nobody like Joey. He's the all-time freak. He's got a sense for this stuff I've never seen.'

It's a sprinter's sense. It's a feel for your legs and your body that allows you to detect from your first step whether you jumped off the line the way you need to or whether you need to accelerate more to reach the target in the time you've set for yourself.

'I used to give him a time - 3.68 seconds for 30 yards - and he'd hit it every time,' Kennedy said. 'I'd watch him get off and think he'd missed it and then I'd look at the watch and there it was - 3.68. He's just got a unique sense for this stuff.'

Injury Spawned Plan

You're at Hooters now, a plate of chicken wings in front of you. One table over, Galloway is chatting with Bucs coach Jon Gruden. It's just before the start of training camp 2005, and they're discussing what happened the year before when Galloway blew out a groin muscle in the season opener.

'It was my fault, too,' Galloway says now. 'I was excited; Gruden was excited. We started talking offense and the more he could draw up, the more I wanted. I was saying, just give it to me. But he was saying, take a day off. But I was hurting.

'I came from Dallas, where I wasn't doing a whole lot in the offense. So they're saying take a day off, and I'm saying let me see what the offense is first. I'd look at the script and say, 'No, I can't take a day off today. There's some good stuff on that script. I have to get in there.'

'So Coach takes me to Hooters, and that's when we started talking about doing things differently. It came from him, really. I mean, I can't go to him and say I don't want to do something. He has to say it. But even then there would be days when I'd say, 'I feel good.' And he'd say, 'Just stick to the plan.''

This is the plan. Galloway works out once a day in training camp. No two-a-days for this guy. Then, when the season starts, he takes Wednesdays off. He goes hard on Thursday and Friday, but he gets Saturday off. That way, he's fresh on Sunday.

'It just makes sense,' Gruden said. 'The idea is to have him at full speed on Sunday. I mean, if you've got him running 26 deep routes on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday then you're not going to have him come out on Sunday with the life in his legs that you want.

'So we've been creative with him. But he's also earned it. You don't do this with all the guys, you know. But he's a smart, heady guy and when he does practice he really puts on a show. And he rarely makes a mistake. I mean, he's lived up to his end of the bargain.'

The payoff is indeed remarkable, especially for a player who has suffered two ACL tears, a groin tear and turns 36 in November. Since Gruden started resting Galloway in 2005, he has not missed a game while catching 154 passes for 2,551 yards and 19 touchdowns.

Those 19 touchdowns, accrued during two-plus seasons, are more than Galloway had the previous six seasons combined. It's apparent, then, that the combination of Galloway's workouts and Gruden's mandated rest are keeping Galloway's legs young.

'A lot of guys look at the situation here and say, wow, 'I wish that was me,'' Galloway said. 'But it's not like I walked into the league and started taking Wednesdays off. It took me years to get here, and I had to pay for it with a groin tear. But it's allowing me to recover. And, when I need to be ready for Sunday, that's what matters.'

Reporter Roy Cummings can be reached at (813) 259-7979 or at rcummings@tampatrib.com.

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