The weight training area and equipment at old Mountaineer Field were atrocious. A strength coach was needed as well as the very expensive equipment and facilities building to house it all and that required much behind the scenes time and effort by Coach Nehlen to fund. Strength builds confidence and confidence builds hope, and hope was in short supply after four consecutive losing seasons by the previous administration. In other words, once strength, confidence, and hope are established facts in your team, these three elements achieve something else which is very important too, they build trust and respect by the players in the coaching staff and it's head coach to plan strategy and teach the team-building skills necessary to execute the game plan. As role models, confident coaches teach young players confidence in themselves and eventually in their teammates which, in time, circles back around and teaches players to have even more confidence in their coaches.
Confidence is the name of the game in college football.
Don Nehlen has pursued this higher and larger purpose his entire career. I don't know of a single person who has ever doubted Don Nehlen's integrity either as a person or as a coach. As a lifelong Mountaineer fan myself, it was always a great comfort to me to know that every night as I laid my head down upon my pillow to go to sleep, I knew I wouldn't wake up the next morning worried about the news of an NCAA investigation in that morning's newspaper. Then he gave me the broadest smile and we both knew what he meant. Now Don Nehlen is about to coach his last game as the boss of the football Mountaineers.