Patrick Clevenger ’26 has been a member of the Roanoke College men’s basketball team since he was a first-year student, but something happened between his sophomore and junior seasons that helped him crush his goals in the weight room and on the court.
That something is actually someone: Scott Bennett, the Maroons’ first full-time coach dedicated solely to strength and conditioning, joined Roanoke’s Athletic Department in fall 2023. Bennett and Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Isabelle O’Connell, who arrived in July 2024, make up a dynamic duo determined to make a difference in athletes’ performance, whether that’s in the pool or on the field, court, diamond, track, course or mat.
“The students deserve to have every supporting cast member around them to give them a chance to be successful,” Bennett said, “and this was the next step at Roanoke College for our athletes.”
Roanoke’s 1,800-student body includes a huge percentage of varsity athletes – about one-third, or more than 600. To put that in perspective, Virginia Tech also has about 600 athletes, but they make up just 2% of the 32,000+ student body. Every one of those 600+ Maroon athletes make their way to Alumni Gym at least once a week for training with Bennett and/or O’Connell, who also join practices and are on the sidelines for games. Their goal is to determine the athletes’ physical voids and enhance their capacity to perform well in their sport – all while keeping them safe and preventing or limiting injuries.
Bennett has more than 35 years of experience in the field, working at schools including Marshall University, the universities of Southern Mississippi and Wyoming, James Madison University, Virginia Tech and Radford. He came to Roanoke from the Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coaches Association, where he served as chief executive officer.
But his passion for training goes all the way back to age 10 or 11, when a high school coach named Johnny Parker became a boarder at Bennett’s grandmother’s house in Tunica, Miss. Parker taught Bennett about exercise and weightlifting, fueling a passion that drove Bennett to earn degrees in sport management and sports medicine from Ole Miss.
Parker, that friendly high school coach who first taught Bennett the ropes, went on to help the New York Giants win two Super Bowls. He also coached in Super Bowls for the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, finishing his career with the San Francisco 49ers.
O’Connell was a standout member of the women’s lacrosse team at Old Dominion University, where she earned a B.A. in health and physical education. She followed that up with an M.S. in applied kinesiology and physiology from University of Florida, then put her degrees to work at Ursinus College before joining the coaching staff at Roanoke.
O’Connell has her own interesting connection: Her stepfather, Patrick “Pat” Muldowney ’89, played basketball for Roanoke College and helped the team win the ODAC championship in 1986 and ’87. She first heard about the opening for an assistant coach from Muldowney’s former coach and longtime friend, Page Moir, who now works as a major gift officer in the Advancement Office.
Bennett and O’Connell have divided up Roanoke’s 26 varsity teams, with each dedicated to a particular list of sports. Because training needs are unique to each team – and also vary within a sport, depending on the position played – the strength coaches have their work cut out for them. Alumni Gym echoes with banging weights, music and chatter every weekday, with lift sessions beginning as early as 6 a.m. and ending as late as 8 p.m.
The careful attention the coaches pay to both the individual athlete and the teams overall is already making a difference.
“My whole goal this off season in the weight room was to gain a lot of weight, put on a lot of muscle,” said Clavenger, “and I have been able to increase everything under Coach Bennett. Each week, he’s programming something different for us based on what our body needs and based on what sports teams he’s working with. He’s really made a meaningful impact on me because of the time and effort he puts into creating the best athlete he can.”
That sentiment is a common refrain among Roanoke’s student-athletes, as Both Bennett and O’Connell said they’ve never worked with a more appreciative bunch.
“I have been thanked more times in the last two weeks by student-athletes than I have been collectively in 36 years,” Bennett said. “I think they realize the value of what we do. They've seen how it's helped them improve, and they appreciate the fact that we're here to help them. They don't feel any entitlement.”
Just as strength and conditioning requires steadily building a better athlete, Roanoke College’s new strength and conditioning program will require building a better facility in which to train those athletes. The college has launched a fundraising initiative for a new Athletic Performance Center that will lift all sports at Roanoke.
The Athletic Performance Center will complement the rest of that cast of characters and resources Bennett mentioned that is so important to student-athletes. The coaches are making the most of Alumni Gym, but it is an aging location with limited equipment for Roanoke’s 600+ student-athletes.
“It cannot come soon enough,” O’Connell said. “Scott and I can get creative with the equipment we have, and it gets the job done, but we could be so much better. These kids work incredibly hard, and they should be training in a facility they feel proud to train in.”
While a modest amount of equipment, such as medicine balls and foam rollers, has been purchased to complement training needs, the coaches have a wish list for the facility that includes double the number of lifting racks, a turf area for speed agility and plyometric drills, an area for active stretching, and technology to help track workouts.
“Strength and conditioning is an important component of competitive sports,” said Athletic Director Curtis Campbell. “The Athletic Performance Center is going to be a game changer for RC athletics, because it will benefit every sport. Our student-athletes are very fortunate to have two coaches the caliber of Scott and Izzy. Now we need to provide them with a facility that will enable them to train our students to be the very best they can be.”
To learn more about our fundraising initiative for an Athletic Performance Center, please contact Suzanne Hiner at hiner@roanoke.edu.