It’s hard to believe that in over 60 years of Cougar athletics, 48 national championships and 113 conference championships, APU has never had a full-time strength and conditioning coach—until now.
After a thorough, nationwide search during the summer, APU athletics ultimately found that the best candidate for the job was in its own backyard.
Enter Nate Nasca: a certified strength and conditioning specialist with experience as an APU two-way athlete and as an assistant coach for APU football and track and field during the past six years.
Nasca attended APU for his first three years of college during which he played football and ran track. As a Cougar, Nasca helped lead his team to an NAIA indoor track and field national championship in 2007, where he was an All-American in the 60m hurdles and a member of the distance medley relay team. At the same time, he was also hauling in passes as a wide receiver for—at the time—the new Cougar head coach, Victor Santa Cruz.
Nasca finished his college career in his home state at the University of Hawaii and played football for the Hawaii Warriors.
After studying physical education at APU and graduating with an interdisciplinary studies degree in coaching from Hawaii, he was called back to Southern California, this time to pursue professional football. After basing himself back in Azusa, Nasca had several tryouts with teams from the Canadian Football League, Arena Football League and the now defunct United Football League. He earned a spot on the UFL’s Hartford Coloniels in 2011, but in preparation for the 2011 season, the league folded.
“I think [my] biggest takeaways from those experiences were how hard it is to make it in professional sports and how many talented athletes there are,” Nasca said. “Coming to that realization is part of what motivated me to learn more about training.”
That was when Nasca began his college coaching career as an assistant coach for APU football and the sprints and hurdles coach for APU track and field. Nasca used his experience working with other professional athletes and organizations to kick-start his passion for college coaching and training.
April Hoy, director of sports medicine and wellness at APU, led the committee that ultimately hired Nasca.
“Strength and conditioning back in the day was you ran an arbitrary amount of sprints or distances and often this was based upon discipline,” Hoy explained. “There’s so much science to it now. To have hired someone who this is their study, this is their passion and they know the science behind implementation—this is where we need to be because this is where the field is now.”
In addition to his certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) certification, Nasca also holds the United States Olympic Weightlifting Level 1 certification and several U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association certifications.
However, Nasca believes that implementation and practice are just as important as keeping an open mind.
“I think one of the things that I enjoyed about my journey with coaching is that I was doing it and learning how to coach, but at the same time, I was also doing it myself for my own training,” Nasca said. “It gave me some insight as far as what worked, what didn’t, what I liked and didn’t like, and it gave me some understanding as to what the athletes go through, too. One of the things I enjoy is doing the training myself and seeing how it makes me feel. I think there’s a benefit to that in the strength and conditioning field.”
In the midst of training 19 varsity sports programs, managing the weight room and laying the groundwork for future of APU strength and conditioning, Nasca always tries to incorporate personal exercise into his days at the gym. He has a passion for what he does, and he’s effective at it. Cougar athletes attest to that.
Senior Michael Ayetiwa finished his last year of NCAA eligibility in 2016 and worked with Nasca both in the gym and for his 400m hurdles event during his two-year APU career. In the final month of his college career, he set a personal record in his event with Nasca as his coach.
“Just being able to lift specifically for my event and exercise the muscles that I needed the most for the 400m hurdles…[Nasca] was able to provide that and my legs didn’t give out, mostly from going into the weight room [with Nasca] and [exercising] every single Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning,” Ayetiwa said.
While certain programs have worked with Nasca before, many of the 19 sports programs at APU are just beginning to work with him.
The men’s and women’s tennis teams started training with Nasca earlier this month. The teams work with him three early mornings a week, and there’s an excitement among them about working with Nasca during the offseason, including where his tennis-tailored workouts will take them during spring competition.
“Working with our fitness trainer even just in the past three weeks has benefited me,” senior tennis captain Sasha Kingsley said. “With his knowledge, I think it’s clearly going to benefit us to be moving very well, striking the ball very clean and being able to play at a higher level with such physical fitness.”
Nasca is already dialed in and focused on his goals for the program and what he’s been hired to do.
“It’s a big responsibility in the sense that you’re training 400 something athletes,” Nasca said. “[Like] making sure that…I’m doing a good job, [that athletes] are getting what they need and that the program continues to get better. I just want to make sure everyone is getting what they need to be successful.”