The new Jesuit trainer Greg Meek will work alongside Coach Lefebvre and Coach Sanchez up in the dell. He will help with all sports that lift in the Dell (football, baseball, basketball, etc.) and with Freshman experience lift. Throughout my interview, I gathered that Coach Meek would make an impact even when limited to a semester here at Jesuit.
Coach Meek has an interesting backstory on how he ended up at Jesuit; he is a graduate student at A&M commerce, striving for a master’s in sports coaching. In order to complete this and graduate this May, he needs to complete an internship (360+ hours); luckily, he knew the Jesuit coach, Doug “Dougie” Robinson, because Coach Robinson was his track coach in high school. Coach Meek reached out and was accepted to join the Jesuit community. Recently before Jesuit, he worked as a head strength coach/ personal trainer at the “Jerry Bullitt” training center. He mainly works with talented youth athletes and occasionally professional athletes. His goal is to work with professional athletes all time and directly impact their success, which Jesuit and his master’s degree (coming in May) will help him do. Coach Meek has an athletic background, playing multiple sports, including track and football, where Coach Robinson was his coach at Mesquite Poteet high. Recently, he was accepted onto the US flag football team, where they won a gold medal in Panama (2018), winning MVP, and later in Jerusalem (2021), they won first place again.
USA Men’s flag football team (2018) -Champs
Coach Meek always knew he wanted to be an athlete, always having a ball in his hand and playing various sports. His experiences in high school with Coach Robinson cause him to find his love for not just playing but coaching. This was due to some excellent advice from Coach Robinson that yielded immediate results (deadlift, sprinting, long jump, etc.), sparking an interest in the science and technicalities of sports. He wanted to do the same thing for others that Coach Robinson did for him, in other words, creating success from athletes willing to work hard. Coach Meek specializes in football, mainly receivers, because he was one his whole life and is very familiar with all the specificities and problems related to them.
Coach Meek’s experience at Jesuit has been excellent, even though it’s only been roughly a week. For example, he highlighted how kids always hold the door open, always have a good attitude, are always “yes sir/no sir,” and are always eager to improve. He stated, “this is the gold standard for what you want in a school.” This is very valuable and awesome for him to experience because this is how he treated his coaches, with an eagerness to get better, which is precisely what Coach Meek was looking for when striving to coach. For the rest of the semester here at Jesuit, Coach Meek is not just looking forward to teaching but also learning as much as he can. He is also really looking forward to building relationships with the kids he will coach because the coaching style that he wants to pursue is less of a bossing around and ordering and more of a helping young athletes on their journey of improvement by giving meaningful advice and with their best interest in heart. However, he wants to set a standard and order in the weight room, especially to promote productivity, but outside the Dell, Coach Meek wants to be like a friend on the journey with you. A bonus of this coaching style is that it will create a stronger unity among the athletes, student body, and the brotherhood that is so valuable at Jesuit. And lastly, Coach Meek wants the Jesuit community to know that he is an open book because he knows that everybody struggles and can do better in everything and just wants to help.