Legendary trainer Pete Bommarito gets players ready for NFL Scouting Combine
MIAMI - South Florida is a hotbed for NFL talent. Both current and future players are often spotted working down here in the off season.
For those hoping to get drafted, many of them enlist the help of legendary trainer Pete Bommarito who helps them get ready for the NFL Scouting Combine and Pro Days by simulating those events at one of his facilities.
"I mean it's almost exact. We have to do a full run through. They have to hit their linear runs, they've got to do the shuttles and they've got to do the position drills," Bommarito said.
Every drill and event is timed, logged and recorded
"There's a lot that goes into this with the training, with the recovery, with everything. There's a lot of science behind it and I feel like they do a really good job of teaching us why we're doing what we're doing," Elijah Arroyo, a former Miami Hurricanes tight end, said.
He said there's no wasted motion, right down to the coaching itself.
"Any time he sees me I think I could be doing something perfect but he'll come over and yell at me, help me fix things, whether it's something small or anything but he's definitely a perfectionist. He wants to get us right," Arroyo said.
"He's literally like a super 'nerd' about all this stuff, so you know everything is scheduled out, everything is calculated, everything is up to what it needs to be. Then you just add a little bit of adrenaline in there and that's what you get," Xavier Restrop, a former Miami Hurricanes wide receiver, said.
Keeping that adrenaline in check is part of the coaching. The only real difference between the simulation and the combine is the feedback and notes Bommarito gives between reps.
"At the end of the day, we're trying to run the perfect run so if it's not perfect he's going to let us know," Restrepo said.
"So if I see they had a technical error on the start, they look like they were overthinking it and things like that. Anything I saw from my angle, if I saw a side step, the arm tightened up, I didn't see them run through or slow down, whatever, I still need to coach them up," Bommarito said.
Getting players in the right frame of mind
The combine presents the unique challenge of putting players on an island all by themselves in front of pro scouts. So while they're trying to gain every advantage they can physically, it's also about finding a mental edge.
"They're used to having 10 other guys out there and 50,000 screaming fans. You get to that combine and you can hear a pin drop. So a lot of times we recreate that atmosphere," Bommarito said. "They just lock in as if 5,000 scouts' eyes are on you. How are you going to carry yourself from drill to drill?
