INDIANAPOLIS — It was during a strength and conditioning meeting at last year’s NFL scouting combine when Kendall Smith noticed.
Smith, along with Harold Nash Jr. and Cedric Smith, felt the room shift. It wasn’t a negative vibe from the room full of peers, but something else.
The three men represented not only the Dallas Cowboys — they constituted the only all-Black strength and conditioning staff in the NFL and still do.
A sense of pride came over them, not so much because of their race, which was important, but because the staff was formed organically.
In a sport in which African Americans make up 58% of the players on the field but less than 40% of people on the sidelines, having people of color in an important position such as strength and conditioning is vital.
“When Harold insisted on me going [to the meeting], obviously, you got an all-Black staff and we walk through the building, and it’s something you notice that’s different,” Kendall Smith said. “We try our best not to make it such a huge deal. We will do our best to be professional about it. But also it’s a respect factor. It’s not because it’s a charity case or anything but these guys know what they’re doing.”
This journey started with former Cowboys strength and conditioning coach Mike Woicik, who mentored Markus Paul at Syracuse. Woicik also was close to veteran NFL strength coach Tom Shaw, who mentored Nash and Kendall Smith after their playing careers.
Woicik hired Kendall Smith in Dallas. After Woicik retired, Paul took over in 2018. In 2020, Paul hired Nash. Paul knew Nash came from a good teacher in Woicik, whom Paul worked under in New England for several years.
Nash spent 11 seasons in New England, taking over as the head strength and conditioning coach in 2011. He is the only Black strength and conditioning coach with a Super Bowl ring.
Cedric Smith was the 2012 NFL’s Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year when he worked in Houston. He was hired by the Cowboys in 2021.
Relationships are big in NFL coaching circles. In the case of the Cowboys’ strength and conditioning staff, it means everything.
After Paul tragically died during the 2020 season, it pushed the Cowboys strength staffers into recovery mode. They worked together with the players to make sure weightlifting programs were maintained, and to just be there for each other emotionally.
Nash was promoted to Paul’s position; Kendall Smith and Cedric Smith also moved up.
“The intention was not to be an all-Black staff,” Nash said. “But you always want to get the best guy for the job. But Cedric was already a head guy two times and I had a professional relationship with Cedric. He was a person from a distance who you admired from the person that he was, the man that he was, the integrity and the knowledge he had in the field, and it was a perfect fit. He was the third chair and I said ‘Let me try and pick off this tree’ and it happened to go to an all-Black staff.”
The three men work hard to make sure the players are taken care of at an elite level, yet there is no downplaying the importance of being Black in the strength and conditioning world.
Most players think about coaching rather than strength and conditioning when careers end. Nash said he also was into the development of one’s body. Kendall Smith just wanted to play football and wasn’t sure about a post-playing career.
And now all three are together, not because of their race, but because of their abilities to help players improve.
“Well, I think it means a whole heck of a lot because I feel like the representation that provides, as you know, it goes a long way,” Cedric Smith said. “I think that the fact that you have the opportunity to always present yourself in this and kind of to show yourself proven because you just wanna be really good at what you do.”
