Clif Marshall, Donald Scott, Kurt Hester Inspire With Speeches At D1 Coach Summit | D1 Daily
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NEW ORLEANS — Every year, the D1 Coach Summit features some amazing guest speakers whose lives have been positively impacted by training in some way.
At the 2025 summit, held last week in New Orleans, the first guest speaker was Kurt Hester, the Director of Strength and Performance for the University of Houston's football team.
Hester also previously served as National Director of Training for D1 and has trained several notable athletes for the NFL Scouting Combine, including Tim Tebow and D1 CEO/founder Will Bartholomew. Hester was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in February.
Throughout the talk, hosted by Bartholomew in a Q&A format at a ballroom in the Royal Sonesta hotel, Hester shared his D1 story and strength and conditioning journey. He also told a memorable story involving an alligator and a knife.
Fittingly, to conclude the discussion, Bartholomew presented Hester a trophy knife and announced that D1 would annunally honor the top strength and conditioning coach in the D1 system with The Kurt Hester Award. Hester is the first recipient.
D1 Gainesville coach Donald Scott was the second speaker at Coach Summit. He shared his incredible life journey and how training prepared him for the Tokyo and Paris Olympics in the Triple Jump.
He then shared how an Olympic mindset could help coaches better prepare their athletes for the future.
If you'd like to learn more about Scott's journey, D1 did a feature on him for the Daily.
Finally, on day two, Clif Marshall spoke about the life-changing impacts coaches can have on youth athletes and how to maximize those impacts.
Marshall served eight seasons as Indiana basketball's Director of Athletic Performance, training first-round picks such as OG Anunoby, Kel'El Ware, Jalen Hood-Schifino, and Romeo Langford.
He also personally trained several first round NBA and NFL Draft picks, MLB All-Stars, Super Bowl MVPs, and the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 Luke Kuechly.
As for the next D1 Coach Summit in 2026, you never know who D1 will bring in!
Franchise Focus
D1 Fort Myers is hosting a football skills camp led by former NFL players Sammy Watkins and Jaylen Watkins.
Light Lifts
• How Murph Became the Most Legendary Fitness Challenge Ever (Men's Health)
• How Fitness Brands Are Rethinking Content in the Era of AI (Athletech)
• How football shirts and music sponsors always strike the right chord (The Athletic)
D1 Daily is produced by Dom Bonvissuto & Ty Wellemeyer
