Will Greenberg remembers the exact moment he realized his football career was on borrowed time.
When the freshman football roster at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Md., came out in 2001, Greenberg was one of just two players who needed only double digits, not triple, for his weight to be listed.
At 5-foot-4, he was just 99 pounds.
“I was definitely always the smallest growing up,” he said.
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New Bills head strength and conditioning coach Will Greenberg has been with the organization since the 2017 season. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
It was obvious a playing career in football might not be in the cards. But that moment sparked a passion that has led directly to Greenberg’s current role as the head strength and conditioning coordinator of the Buffalo Bills.
Greenberg, who has been with the Bills since head coach Sean McDermott’s first season with the team in 2017, was promoted to his current role in March, replacing Eric Ciano.
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It’s a big change in an important role for the team, but one that has been met with positive feedback from players, who almost universally adore Greenberg.
“He’s probably, easily, been the happiest person in the building this whole offseason,” right tackle Spencer Brown said. “He hasn’t had a bad day yet, so it’s cool. I’m happy for him, because he’s always happy to see you and happy to help you.”
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Greenberg’s football playing career might have been short, but he was just getting started in athletics as a high school freshman. He played basketball, baseball and ran track. He dialed in on baseball, figuring that would be his best chance to earn a college scholarship.
Still, he needed to get stronger. As a catcher, he struggled to make the throw to second base.
“That’s probably why I fell in love with lifting weights,” he said.
To do that, Greenberg went to Philbin Sports Performance in Gaithersburg, Md.
It was love at first sight. Rows and rows of Nautilus machines. A 40-yard track. Athletes training. Greenberg immediately knew he was in the right place.
“I loved the process of lifting weights,” he said. “I loved everything that came with it – the pain, the discomfort. I would skip school just to go lift weights.”
Greenberg became obsessed with learning everything he could about how the human body moves. For his 18th birthday, his parents helped him pay for his personal training certification.
He hit a growth spurt, shooting up to 6-2, but he was still rail-thin at 160 pounds. He was a two-time letterwinner in baseball and track. He served as the captain of the baseball team his senior year, in which he set school records in hits (32) and doubles (11), batting .410 and throwing out 15 of 25 runners attempting to steal. He was an honorable mention Washington Post All-Met and first-team all-county selection, but he didn’t get any offers to play Division I ball.
That meant going to Washington College, a Division III school in Chestertown, Md. Greenberg played well in his first season, and that summer, all his time in the weight room paid off. He put on 40 pounds of muscle and turned himself into a Division I prospect. Greenberg played in a summer league at Maryland and, needing a catcher, the Terrapins took him as a transfer.
Greenberg played his final three college seasons for the Terrapins, showing an ability to hit to all fields as a left-handed hitter while being able to play virtually every position in the field.
“I thought I’d keep playing professionally, but the scouts had a different opinion on that,” he said with a laugh.
Greenberg, though, had a solid backup plan. He thrived in Maryland’s strength and conditioning program, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. He took all the effort he had put into his playing career – taking 1,000 swings per day in the batting cage or fielding hundreds of ground balls – and transferred it into learning everything he could about strength and conditioning.
His first real mentor in the field, Preston Greene, was last month named director of sports performance for the Duke men’s basketball program. Greene brought Greenberg to the University of Florida during the 2011-12 season to work as a paid intern for the men’s basketball program under then-coach Billy Donovan.
At the time, Greenberg was making very little money, so he crashed on the couch of Donovan’s assistant, Mark Daigneault, who just won the NBA championship as head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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“I really like to read, and he had this amazing bookshelf,” Greenberg said of Daigneault. “Fast-forward 13 years, and he’s the head coach of the Thunder, and I was sleeping on his couch. It’s cool to have been in sports long enough to link with people like that.”
From Florida, Greenberg went to Appalachian State for two seasons, working with the men’s basketball program. In his spare time, any money he made was used to attend strength and conditioning seminars.
It was at a seminar that he formed a relationship with Tim Caron, who eventually would hire Greenberg to be an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Army. The career move introduced Greenberg to working with a football program that had 120 players. During Greenberg’s two years at West Point, the Black Knights ended a 13-year losing streak to Navy and turned around the trajectory of the program.
Greenberg, though, wanted to be in charge of an entire operation, so his next stop was, in his words, the smallest town you can imagine. In 2016, he left Army to head up Southern Utah University’s strength and conditioning program. That meant relocating to Cedar City, Utah.
At the same time, Greenberg, 37, was working on his master’s degree in nutrition.
“He’s a very curious person, always kind of looking for what’s out there,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “He’s got an innovative, almost analytical mind, always looking to turn over a new stone.”
That made him a perfect fit for the Bills. After McDermott took over, the team was looking for a strength coach who had knowledge in the nutritional field. Caron previously had worked with Ciano at Georgia Tech, so he recommended Greenberg for the job.
Nine years later, he’s still with the Bills – an impressive run in a league known for its coaching turnover.
“It’s been a cool experience here because being in an assistant role for so long, I was able to grow myself in different ways, understand football better, understand business better, understand scouting, things I didn’t know before,” Greenberg said. “The difference from college to pros is vast in how you have to interact with people. In college, you’re in an authoritarian position. … I got here and was like, ‘Oh, this is very different.’ Everyone is a professional. You’re much more in a service role.”
In recent years, Greenberg became very involved in the onboarding program for the team’s rookies, working with the player engagement staff. His initiative stood out to Beane and McDermott when they were interviewing candidates.
“He understands what Sean and I are looking for with our program, with our team and some of the areas that we wanted to see if we could move the bar up a little bit more,” Beane said. “I think he’s done a good job. That’s not just from me watching. That’s me talking to players.”
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Bills head strength and conditioning coordinator Will Greenberg, shown in 2018 while he was an assistant, believes in treating people with respect, like human beings first, instead of a player first. Buffalo News file
Greenberg recognizes that not every player moves the same. Because of that, they need individualized workouts. That attention to detail has won over the locker room. To a man, players have nothing but good things to say about Greenberg’s approach.
“Will is awesome. He worked with the rookies closely last year. I think that’s why people are so close with him,” defensive tackle DeWayne Carter said. “I wondered last year, like, ‘Why does everybody like this guy?’ That was before I really knew him. He’s been awesome. The detail, how much he listens, his plan – it’s not an easy gig, especially when the season starts, and he’s taken it on at full-speed.”
Under Greenberg, Carter said there is no such thing as “ego lifting,” which is moving as much weight as possible just for show. Rather, guys are working the muscle groups they need specifically to be at their best on the field.
Ultimately, that’s the job of any strength and conditioning coach.
“Strength coaches aren’t going to win you a game or lose you a game. We don’t make play-calls,” Greenberg said. “We’re just trying to support everyone to the best of our ability. A lot of that is physical. Some of it is more holistic.”
That’s why Greenberg makes it a point to fill the time between sets with conversation. He wants to get to know the players. What are their hobbies away from football? What are their kids’ names? He recognizes that knowing those answers makes the weight room a comfortable, inviting space.
“Treating people with respect, like human beings first, instead of a player first, always has been helpful to me,” he said. “When I’m in a weight room, I’m in my happy place. So you want to be the place where there is a little bit of a reprieve. I won’t say enjoyment, because the whole process there is enjoyment, but it doesn’t have to be so serious all the time. That hopefully leads to better health and better performance.”
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