Senior Harrison Phillips has packed a great deal into his summer. Witness a single day for the Stanford student-athlete this past Thursday.
Phillips sets his alarm for 5:15 a.m., so that he can make a bagel for fuel and ride his bike over to the football facility. He makes sure to arrive by 6 a.m., when the training room opens. Phillips has learned the value of prehab work to avoid injury and gets 30 minutes of treatment, followed by core activation and soft tissue work. The whistle blows at 7 a.m. for the team's conditioning run.
Thursday morning starts position-specific, so Phillips breaks away with the defensive linemen for work with bags and hoops. The team then comes back together for combined conditioning.
Afterward, Phillips refuels at the nutrition oasis in the weight room (smoothie, peanut butter and jelly, banana). Then he looks at his card for that day's lift. Thursdays are for upper-body work. This one is a dynamic day -- higher volume, lower weight for explosiveness. The 293-pound senior defensive tackle also does some rope climbing. He then leads the team in their post-lift stretch.
Though he has already twice consumed valuable calories, Phillips heads to a traditional breakfast by 10:15 a.m. He loads up with two omelets, more eggs, fruit, oatmeal, toast and smoothies. He has changed into work clothes in the locker room and is ready to move into the second phase of his day.
Phillips arrives at work at Altamont Capital, a local private equity firm, by 10:45 a.m. He turns on his laptop to check e-mails first. Then he digs into the due diligence he is doing on a company, determining whether or not the firm should send an Indication of Interest. Harrison is writing a CIM (confidential information memorandum) on this particular company and others this summer, each running 60-100 pages.
"This is very close to what I'm interested in," he says of his private equity summer internship. "I'm learning a ton. It took me a while to find my passion, but now I have."
Phillips grabs lunch with former Stanford All-America center and Academic All-America Chase Beeler, a mentor and young star at the firm. Then it's back to due diligence.
The sprint at work finishes at 4:30 p.m., so that Phillips can return to campus and reach the class room by 5 p.m. He keeps a spare change of clothes in the car. Today he is attending a 50-minute discussion section for STS 123 (Making of a Nuclear World: History, Politics, and Culture).
Phillips grabs another quick meal on the go before arriving at the weight room at 6:20 p.m. He wants to put in some extra individual work before joining his teammates on the field tonight. Phillips likes to give extra attention to his knees and core with this time. Occasionally he will do some 'swole patrol' work on those shirt-popping muscles.
At 7:15 p.m. Phillips starts a voluntary players-led practice on the field with his teammates, called 'team technician.' He first takes the defensive linemen to run drills. Solomon Thomas was in the building Monday and gave Phillips some helpful advice on what drills to run.
"My role is to take the young guys and get them up to speed," he says.
The culmination of the practice is an 11-on-11 team period. You might be surprised to watch the flow and precision of these activities, without a single football coach to be found.
Phillips decides to stay afterward for extra work on the bag. A post-workout meal from Boston Market is provided, which he devours. Phillips sinks into the cold tub to reduce swelling and flush lactic acid from his system.
Back to the dorm at 9 p.m., Phillips fixes a smoothie and two chicken breasts. He pulls up his laptop to work on his summer community project: TeachAIDS. On top of an internship, two Stanford classes and training with his team, Phillips is educating on concussion culture in area high schools.
Phillips finishes his homework and turns the lights off by 10:15 p.m. He sets his alarm for 5:15 a.m. the next day.