After his college baseball career flamed out, Jamie Yanchar found himself working forestry in western Kentucky.
But then a trip to visit a friend on the New York Yankees changed everything.
On the stopover at the Yankees facilities, he witnessed the blossoming profession of strength training, and he immediately began to plot out how he could get involved.
“It sounded a lot better than what I was doing,” said Yanchar, who, 25 years later, is now in his first season as a Seahawks assistant strength and conditioning coach.
Yanchar, 46, comes to Seattle after 20 years at USC, where he trained athletes in football, baseball and, well, just about any and all sports.
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“He’s worked everything,” said head strength and conditioning coach Chris Carlisle, who was with Yanchar for the previous nine years at USC. “He’s a jack of all trades.”
Carlisle brought Yanchar up to Seattle with him, and the two are going into their 10th season working together. Because of his assistant’s experience, Carlisle calls Yanchar his right-hand man and says he “brings a lot to the table.”
“What stands out the most is his intensity,” Carlisle said. “He has a huge desire to get people better and he’s not afraid to work.”
Yanchar echoed that sentiment. He said his ultimate desire is to see the athletes become faster and stronger, and he doesn’t care about anything else.
“I just love being with the athletes and seeing them improve and get better,” Yanchar said. “It’s not a glamorous position — you’re way behind the scenes, long days, long hours — but it’s just something I really fell in love with.”
With his 25-year career in the books, Yanchar, who was a pitcher at Louisville and Western Kentucky before injuring his back and ending his playing career, has almost seen it all. When he got his first glimpse of strength training during his visit to the Yankees in 1985, the profession was just getting its start. Since then, it has continually developed.
“It’s growing, there’s nothing set in stone,” Yanchar said. “The body’s still the same, but you find better ways to improve the training of it. We’ve basically rewritten the book in the last 20 years in terms of how to get the most out of the athlete.”
Yanchar is both progressive and traditional when it comes to his job. It’s an odd paradox for the man who calls himself a “dinosaur” because of his old-school line of training and thinking.
“Dinosaurs are out there, and I’m a dinosaur,” said Yanchar, who didn’t even have his first cell phone until moving to Seattle six months ago. “I want to win, that’s all I care about.”
As he continues down that path to his passion, Yanchar moves from USC — a place where he helped win a lot of games — to Seattle, where he’s been enjoying the life adjustment.
“The facility, the organization, the people — this place is impressive all the way around,” Yanchar said. “It’s a change, and I definitely needed a change. You get spoiled by the sun, but it’s good to have the change. It’s like a new adventure, a new chapter in the book.”
And that prehistoric desire to win? He’s hoping to help the Seahawks do just that this fall and beyond — just like he did for 20 years at USC.
“I just can’t wait for this upcoming year,” Yanchar said. “I can’t wait to see what we have.
“It’s like waiting for Christmas.”
