Ian Book Offers A Snapshot Of His At-Home Training, Life
Ian Book has an accessible field, receivers to throw with, a weight room in his garage and custom quarterback quizzes from his offensive coordinator.
The quarantined football player’s starter kit to staying sharp.
Book, at home with his family in Northern California, throws three times per week with his former high school wide receivers, all at various stages of their college careers. He uses his home gym and the resistance bands sent by Notre Dame director of football performance Matt Balis most days.
“We have a good group of guys, still try to maintain the social distancing,” Book said on NBC Sports’ Distanced Training in April. “But we go and throw. I’ve been finding a routine. There are some guys going into the draft, guys still in high school and guys in college.”
It’s an escape from the reason he’s three time zones away from South Bend in a spring that was supposed to be critical for him and Notre Dame's offense. Elsewhere at home, though, the COVID-19 realities are present.
Book’s mother, Kim, is a nurse. His father, Rick, and brother, Nolan, work in law enforcement. While he trains, finishes classes and meets virtually with teammates, all of them are at work as first responders and essential workers in environments where the chances of exposure to the disease is increased.
“We try not to talk about it that much,” Book said. “It’s obviously scary. My mom’s in the hospital seeing everything going on. She’s doing a good job not stressing the family out, but at the same time letting us know how crazy a time it is.
“Washing her hands like crazy. She’s got us in line, that’s for sure.”
Book has his own group to keep in line — he is one of 10 SWAT (Spring/Summer Workout Accountability Team) leaders for Notre Dame this offseason. He meets with the members of his team throughout the week to keep tabs on their progress in class, on voluntary workouts and making sure they can earn weekly points necessary.
Opportunities for points are harder to come by with campus closed and everyone spread out, but Balis has put in ways to make sure they still exist. In usual circumstances, the punishment for failing to hit a weekly point quote is an early morning workout with Balis. It is not possible now, but to think Balis isn’t keeping track of inadequate totals for later would be a risky assumption.
“You have your guys. It’s your team,” Book said. “Keep them accountable, especially right now trying to do everything virtually, make sure they’re doing their workouts. Communicating and talking to each other, making sure everybody’s save.
“There are some wellness questionnaires we need to do every day. Everything’s still for points. We’re competing for points and trying to win.”
On the side, Book has one more project: Grow out a mustache.
He’s joining the yearly offensive line tradition of sporting some kind of facial hair.
“We do it for camp,” Book said. “Some of the linemen buzz their hair and grow a beard. I wanted to be part of that culture a little bit. I can’t grow a beard, so I just left the ‘stache for a little bit. I have my mom on my back.”
It made sense to do now, because no one is quite certain when training camp and the season will start. The decision to play and when it becomes safe to reconvene is out of the football program’s hands. Book, naturally, wants it to be as close to normal as possible. But with the uncertainty of it all and living with people who encounter the difficult realities of the pandemic firsthand, he’s OK with a season in any shape or form.
“Somebody brought it up and asked, ‘What do you miss most?’” Book said. “I said, ‘running out of the tunnel.’ Then I thought about running out of the tunnel with no fans. But if that’s the way we can play football, I’m not complaining. I can’t wait to have my last year of college football. But it’ll be different not having 85,000 screaming fans. It would feel more like a practice or scrimmage.”
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @PatrickEngel_, @ToddBurlage and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.