Release: 10/25/2012  Courtesy: B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor

BOULDER – Next time you go swimming, wear a sweatshirt. Get about a dozen of your friends to do the same, then head for the pool’s deep end and begin treading water. When the sweatshirt is soaked, take it off, pass it to a friend and have him/her put it on.Oh, and imagine a guy with a stopwatch perched poolside to make sure all sweatshirts are off, then pulled back on by different participants, in a prescribed amount of time. Keep doing that – plus several other interesting exercises foreign to suburban pool parties – for the better part of three hours.Colorado men’s basketball went waterborne early Thursday morning – that’s 5 a.m. early. On Wednesday night from about 6 p.m. until 8:45, the Buffaloes took to the turf – and got wet there, too. In fact, the Buffs might have been drier Thursday in the YMCA pool in their sweatshirts than they were the previous night at Potts Field.

It was all done (and done vigorously) in the name of developing leadership, camaraderie and physical and mental toughness. Following through on a suggestion by hoops mentor and close friend Mark Turgeon, CU coach Tad Boyle enrolled his team in The Program/Judgment Day, a roughly eight-hour experience spread over two days and usually run by former military personnel.

Turgeon, Boyle’s boss at Jacksonville State and Wichita State, recently put his Maryland team through The Program and afterward said “it was on the best things he’s ever done as a coach in terms of bringing outside influences in on his program,” according to Boyle.

Boyle researched it, concluded it could benefit the Buffs and signed on. “I thought for where our team is this year, with the youth we have and only one senior, the leadership we lost last year, we’re trying to prepare these young guys to go into a season and they really don’t know what they’re going to be faced with,” he said. “So, it’s not like we’ve got five or six juniors and seniors that can show them in practice every day.”

But the fact that The Program was endorsed by Turgeon might have made any further research unnecessary. Said Boyle: “He and I have the same core values when it comes to coaching and building a team and operating a basketball program. I’ve got a lot of confidence in Mark Turgeon. Quite frankly, if it (recommendation) had come from someone else, I might or might not have done it. But when he said you’ve got to really look at this, we did. And for where our team is and what it needs, I think this is perfect.”

Boyle’s goal: “I’d like to come out of this with a sense of togetherness, a sense of bonding that we went through this together, survived it and are better and tougher because of it mentally and physically. And maybe we’ve got some guys who stepped forward in terms of leadership on this basketball team.”

THAT’S PRECISELY WHAT THE PROGRAM advertises. It was founded by Eric Kapitulik, a former infantry and special ops officer in the United States Marine Corps, and is headquartered in Woburn, Mass. In 1999, Kapitulik’s platoon was in a helicopter crash that killed seven fellow Marines. Afterward, in their memory, he created the Force Reconnaissance Scholarship Fund and now has about a dozen staffers in The Program who are deployed on assignments such as the one at CU.

Working with the Buffs were Coleman Ruiz, a 12-year Navy SEAL officer and former college wrestler and team captain at the US Naval Academy, and Sol Sollerer, a 22-year British Army commando veteran who had just joined The Program and was working his seventh event. Ruiz and Sollerer met with the coaching staff Wednesday afternoon and with the team shortly thereafter.

“That’s a couple of intense and confident guys,” said Buffs assistant Jean Prioleau. “You can tell they’ve been through some (stuff).”

Before Ruiz and Sollerer entered an upstairs meeting room at the Coors Events Center and introduced themselves, the Buffs were joking, talking about what they did and didn’t know about Navy SEALS (even uttering a few circus seal barks) and wondering what might be expected of them that night and the next morning.

“I’ve just heard it is supposed to test us mentally and physically,” sophomore guard Askia Booker said. “I think it’s just seeing where we’re at, how far we can push each other and who can lead. It’s going to be a good experience for all of us. We’re going to be able to hold each other up; it’s going to be a team thing. You can’t do it individually.”

The joking stopped and the room went hear-a-pin-drop quiet when Sollerer strolled in and snapped, “Feet on the floor, backs against the chairs, eyes straight ahead.” He offered a brief bio of himself, then introduced Ruiz, who outlined The Program’s ethos – “We are good team leaders and good teammates and we prepare ourselves every day to fill either role” – and its three core principles – “We are physically and mentally tough; we don’t make excuses and we don’t let others make excuses for us; we work hard . . . working hard means that we do ONE MORE!”

The Buffs would hear “ONE MORE” more than once over the next 14 hours. “All the athletes we see at The Program are just like you. . . they have about the same skills you have,” Ruiz told them before the short trip to Potts Field. “The teams that do that much more, that do the things outside practice and are willing to make that kind of commitment (will succeed). You need to create the opportunities to win championships, then you can make it happen.

“Everybody is looking for a way out. ‘Until we get it right’ – that mentality in basketball will take you to the next level. Make no mistake, every other team you play is going to have talent . . . talent is going to win tons of games, but every team – basketball, football, lacrosse, hockey, you name it – with talent is not going to win games. How The Program helps a team like this, even though you’ve won a championship, is to know that talent is not enough.”

Ideally, Boyle said his team’s time in The Program would have been done in mid-September – about the same time Turgeon had the Terps go through it. But Boyle only found out about it after that, “Then the timing was difficult,” he said. He didn’t want to open practice earlier this month with it, but he figured since the Buffs already had 10 practices in advance of their summer European trip, “We have enough things in now basketball-wise. A critical piece for the success of this year’s team is going to be between our ears. This program hopefully will help us in that area . . .

“This isn’t weight-room stuff, not basketball-specific stuff. They’re going to get out of their comfort zone, do things maybe they haven’t done before. That’s what’s good. We all have a comfort level, I don’t care if you’re a coach or a player or a fan or an administrator . . . we all have comfort levels we operate in. The way you grow is to maybe try something different, get out of your comfort level and take some risks. I feel like that’s what we’re doing. I’ve never done this as a coach; we’re trying something new. Maybe it’ll help us – I certainly hope it will. I think it will. It might not, but all we lose is two days.”

He’s not likely to look back on them as two days lost.

IF WEDNESDAY NIGHT WASN’T FIT for man nor beast, it might have been perfect for a former SEAL’s purposes . . . driving rain and temperatures in the low-40s to start, rain turning to snow and temps in the low-30s to finish. Said Sollerer: “Anyone can lead when it’s 70 degrees and sunny . . . it was uncomfortable for them; you could tell right away it was uncomfortable.”

Ruiz wanted a “perfect 16 minutes” of pushups, leg kicks in the sodden grass, jumping jacks, etc. Perfect meant perfect: 16 players lined up in four arrow-straight rows and squared away front, back and to each side. Squiggly rows weren’t perfect. Start it all over. Do it right or do it all night.

Before they left the CEC, Ruiz told the Buffs he wanted three things: “Stay focused on the mission, stay alert, stay responsive.” And, he added this isn’t about self: “Make every decision based on the guy to your left and right.” Several of the players came outfitted with hats and gloves, but Ruiz told them all would wear hats and gloves – or no one would. So no one did.

Counting stops, starts and re-dos, finishing Ruiz’s first perfect 16 minutes required just over an hour. Then came a second perfect 16 minutes, followed by a perfect overtime, consisting of two-man relays with players lugging logs, sandbags and each other. The Buffs didn’t return to the CEC until nearly 8:45 p.m., then had wakeup calls for 4:30 on Thursday morning.

One of Ruiz’s goals in honing mental toughness was “practicing being miserable and getting comfortable being uncomfortable . . . finding the physical edge and jumping off.” Freshman Xavier Johnson found it when Wednesday night’s rain turned to snow: “Most definitely . . . this was my first time seeing snow, being from California,” he said. “To experience it like that, I mean, what better way could you ask for it?

“I enjoyed it a lot; it was a great experience for me. It was probably one of the most physical things I’ve ever done. But it made it easier to bear doing it as a team. This will be something to look back on during the season, during those tough times . . . we can say we’ve had it a lot tougher – in the snow doing pushups and all that other stuff. There won’t be anything harder than that.”

Wednesday night’s foul weather work at Potts Field impressed Ruiz, who said the Buffs “had a phenomenal first day – I told them that when we broke. The team had probably the best first day – I work about 40 events a year, I’ve had 20 this fall – I’d seen from any team.”

But for the early Thursday water work at the Boulder ‘Y,’ “They came out a little flat,” Ruiz said. “Getting in the pool, we’re way outside our comfort zone and guys started to struggle a little bit. We make all of our mistakes when we’re tired and when we’re nervous. These guys shouldn’t be nervous when they play anybody; they shouldn’t be nervous getting in the pool.

“But every athlete will get tired. The way we prevent those mistakes (and) coming out flat is we learn effective ways to communicate with each other . . . the Buffs started doing that (Thursday), and they got after it 100 percent.”

BOYLE MIGHT NOT KNOW HOW The Program benefitted his young team until Pac-12 Conference play starts and the Buffs begin defending the championship they won last March in Los Angeles. But he and his staff liked what they saw developing in the rain/snow on Wednesday night and in the water the next morning.

Sabatino Chen, the team’s only senior, asserted himself early, and Ruiz correctly noted on Thursday morning that when Booker and Chen “are dialed in” the entire team picks up on it. He made sure both players understood that. Addressing the Buffs at the conclusion of the pool work, Ruiz also cited other players, including Johnson; sophomore guard Spencer Dinwiddie; freshman post Josh Scott; and junior wing Jeremy Adams, whose participation was limited due to a knee ailment.

In a “fireman’s carry” exercise on Wednesday night, Adams and junior guard Kevin Nelson, who was battling an ankle injury, provided literal support to their teammates and prevented Ruiz from having the entire squad rerun the drill to achieve another perfect 16 minutes. During the demanding night and morning, Boyle said every member of the team contributed a high-point and proved to be quality teammates. That included junior posts Shane Harris-Tunks and Ben Mills; freshmen forwards Wesley Gordon and Chris Jenkins; freshmen guards Xavier Talton and Eli Stalzer; sophomore guard Beau Gamble and junior guard Geoffrey Bates.

When The Program concludes a two-day event, the administrators award a gray T-shirt bearing The Program logo to one participant. Not surprisingly, junior wing Andre Roberson earned this one for what Ruiz called back-to-back “monster” efforts. “It means a lot,” said Roberson, who ranked third nationally in rebounding last season (11.1 a game) and was the only Pac-12 player to average a double-double (11.6 points). “It shows that hard work does pay off. If you go out there and bust your butt, work as hard as you can, things will come out all right.”

Before going through The Program, Roberson said he believed the Buffs can take it up a notch in practice: “I feel like we don’t go hard all the time. That’s one thing coach says, we’re a 20-minute team right now. We tail off toward the last 30 minutes of practice. We just have to get better and push through fatigue.”

Maybe two days with Ruiz and Sollerer put the Buffs on the right course to achieve that, although Roberson believes such a push is as much mental as physical. The Program’s real value, Roberson said, “is about helping us become better leaders (and) better teammates for each other. It’s definitely something we can use later on in this season and later on in our lives.”

Boyle is counting on both – in that order.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU