Bigger Faster Stronger

Cole Ivie; It’s a Family Tradition

Cole Ivie is running as fast as he can to keep up with his family’s legacy of athletic success

By Roger Freeborn
Published: Winter 2003

Bernard and Sharon Ivie were especially proud to see their son Conrad receive the BFS Athlete of the Year in 2001. This prestigious award is given in recognition of not just outstanding athletic ability but also character, leadership abilities and academic achievements. That would have been enough for most parents, but then there’s the Ivie’s other son, Cole.
A junior at Munford High School in Munford, Tennessee, Cole has been making college football scouts take notice of his success on the field, most particularly his exceptional speed. This year Cole was named underclassman MVP out of a group of 244 blue chip athletes at a Nike Camp in Seattle, Washington, running the fastest 40 with 4.46. He repeated his success in a Pepsi Combine in Memphis, Tennessee, by running the fastest 40 and finishing in the top two in the vertical jump and the standing long jump. At 5’8 and 160 pounds, Cole’s absolute bests in combine events include 4.41 in the 40, a 36.5 vertical, 4.1 pro-agility and 10.9 in the standing long jump.
On the gridiron, Cole has played quarterback and defensive back, and he is also able to put his speed to good use in special teams. In addition to a kickoff return of 75 yards for a touchdown, and several long runs covering two-thirds of the field, every time Cole has touched the ball he has returned it past the 50. Every time. He is also accomplished in track, and has run a 10.9 in his leg of the 4x100 meter relay and a 22.5 in his leg of the 200-meter relay.

Brains behind the Brawn

As a student, Cole maintains a 3.2 GPA and has set his sights on a scholarship in either track or football. “I just want to go Division I and get a good education,” says Cole. “If football offers me a D1 scholarship, I’ll take football. If track offers me a good one, I’ll take track. If I get the opportunity to go D1 in either sport, then I’ll choose the school that offers me the best scholarship.” In football, Cole has already received letters from Miami, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Arkansas, Alabama and Ole Miss.
Whatever college he chooses, Cole wants to major in criminal justice in pursuit of eventually becoming a narcotics detective. “I see people in high school wanting to go out and do drugs, and I see the people that turn them on to it, and I think I can stop it,” says Cole. As for his personal plan to stay clean and sober, Cole says he avoid parties because he wants to avoid temptation and “focus on everything I can to make myself a better athlete. This goes back to the BFS Rules for Success motto that says ‘I will surround myself with positive people, places and things. I refuse to associate with any person, place or thing that creates negativity or mediocrity.’”
To achieve his athletic goals, Cole has devoted himself to the weightroom and has personal bests of 275 in the power clean and 430 in the squat. “My two favorite lifts are the parallel squat and the glute-ham raise – if I could only pick two lifts to do in the weightroom, those would be it. Every time I get done with the squat I always feel the front and the side of my legs burning, and that feels good because you know you gave it everything you had and that you’re gaining from that. My hamstrings don’t burn from the squat, but they do after I work them with the glute-ham.”
One Step Back,
Two Steps Forward

During his sophomore year, Cole took the starting quarterback position and was having a very successful year until he suffered a serious break in his right arm. “After a three-and-a-half-hour surgery, Cole was down for about a week, but he was on the sideline the next Friday night supporting his team,” says Bernard Ivie. “Within two weeks, he was back in the weightroom working hard on his leg strength and his left arm. Cole used the BFS motto that he had recited every morning when he was four years old: ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing, will deter me from my goal.’”
Bernard, a coach at Munford High School, says that other coaches thought he was crazy for allowing his son to work out with his arm in a cast for three months, but Cole insisted. Says Bernard, “To the Ivies, the BFS program is not just a weight program; it is a way of life.” Cole adds, “If you take care of your injuries, you can come back a lot faster, and you can return like you were never injured.” Cole went so far as to ice his broken arm while it was still in the cast. To prove his point, two weeks after his cast was removed, and with a metal pin still in his arm from the surgery, Cole power cleaned 265 pounds in a special weightlifting competition held in Tennessee.
Cole sees himself as a role model and is disgusted with the behavior of many of today’s superstars. “When you see wealthy athletes do the wrong thing and get away with it, the public starts to accept it – that’s not right.” Cole, says his father, practices what he preaches. “One of the many instances that display his character occurred when he found a wallet containing six hundred dollars. Cole found the owner and returned the wallet and the money; the owner was an immigrant in the United States and told us that this was every penny he had in the world,” says Bernard.

The BFS Way

Since he was four years old, Cole has been doing the BFS Dot Drill and reciting the principles of the BFS program, and says he enjoys every issue of BFS magazine. “I love it – whenever I read the magazine it inspires me to go out and do more things because it shows me that there are other athletes are working as hard as me. It tells me that I’ve got to work harder and that I can’t miss a day of practice – everybody will miss a day of working out sometime, but if I don’t then I’m always gaining on my competition. The magazine also inspires me because it tells me about some of the troubles that many outstanding athletes have had to overcome.” In fact, his strong work ethic is the reason he prefers not to have training partners.
“When I work out I like to get everything done, and then do extra. Whenever I work out with a partner, we have to change weights too much and it just takes up too much time. I like being by myself, pushing myself, and whenever I need a spotter I call on my dad to come over and help me out.” As for his expectations for this work ethic, his immediate goals include squatting 500 pounds and running 4.3 in the 40.
One person who inspires Cole is his brother, who is now at Central Missouri focusing on his pre-med studies. “He’s very supportive of me,” says Cole. “When he was in high school, we would compete against each other and get little attitudes; but whenever he was on that field, all I did was focus on him. And that is the way he is with me now. He calls me almost every night, and we talk football and he helps me out. He is my main role model – he is the one who convinced me that I could do all this.”
When asked who he would like to thank for helping him achieve his goals, Cole answered like a true Eleven: “I thank God and my family, because God is the one who made it all possible and it’s my family who pushed me to do it.”

In football, Cole has already received letters from Miami, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Arkansas, Alabama and Ole Miss.

This year Cole was named underclassman MVP out of a group of 244 blue chip athletes at a Nike Camp in SThis year Cole was named underclassman MVP out of a group of 244 blue chip athletes at a Nike Camp in Seattle, Washington, running the fastest 40 with 4.46. He repeated his success in a Pepsi Combine in Memphis, Tennessee, by running the

Cole has devoted himself to the weightroom and has personal bests of 275 in the power clean and 430 in the squat.