The Bears have hired Brent Salazar as their first Clyde Emrich Director of High Performance — a new position created under first-year general manager Ryan Poles to oversee the team’s strength-and-conditioning and sports science departments. The post is named after Bears legendary strength coach Clyde Emrich, who died at 90 in November.
Salazar, a former all-conference college tennis player at New Mexico, has 11 seasons of NFL experience — most recently as the Vikings strength and conditioning coach in 2016. Prior to that he spent nine seasons with the Chiefs as assistant strength and conditioning coach. Poles was with the Chiefs’ personnel department from 2009-22, when he was hired as the Bears’ general manager.
