Mark Hocke motivates the Gators during a recent workout in the weight room. (Photo: Chris Kim/UAA Communications)
Brothers In Arms: Hocke And Napier Share A Vision And Background
Tuesday, March 8, 2022 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They were two sons of the South living and working in the heart of Dixie, each in search of something more from their lives and careers than they knew at the time. Often huddled inside meeting rooms together with their boss in command, Mark Hocke took note of the new guy always taking notes.
Hocke was a junior member of Alabama head coach Nick Saban's strength and conditioning staff. The new guy, Billy Napier, was the former offensive coordinator at Clemson and busy resurrecting his career as an offensive analyst for the Crimson Tide.
This was in 2011, the first time New Orleans native Hocke and small-town Georgia boy Napier worked together. They were part of what they called the Cheap Labor Union.
"We were all entry level. Some of us were there for free – and we were fortunate to be there and learn from Coach,'' Napier said recently. "It was a special environment. Everyone wanted to get better, and that made it awesome."
Hocke's path to Tuscaloosa was not as glamorous as Napier's. A former quarterback at Furman, Napier became the youngest offensive coordinator in college football in 2009. That same year, Hocke made what evolved into a critical career decision.
A running back/tight end during his prep career at Jesuit High in New Orleans, Hocke wasn't the athlete that his older brother was. Brant Hocke starred at Jesuit a few years before Mark and later played at Tulane with future NFL quarterback Patrick Ramsey. Mark considered an option to walk-on at Tulane, but instead split his time as a Tulane undergrad, an assistant coach at Jesuit, and working in a restaurant to help pay the bills.
"I kind of joke that they made me turn in the cleats and gave me a whistle," Hocke said. "I was drowning. But I found out that I loved it. I always had an itch to coach."
Hocke stuck to the same game plan for six years. And then, in 2009, he began to crack open as many doors as he could to see what else was out there. Brant Hocke knew then-Alabama strength and conditioning director Scott Cochran from their days competing against each other while growing up. They talked about Brant's younger brother.
He was ready for a change.
"I wanted to compete at a higher level," Mark said. "I wanted to learn from the best. I wanted to train the best. I wanted to recruit the best. I wanted to compete with the best."
Mark Hocke at a recent offseason workout. (Photo: Jordan McKendrick/UAA Communications)
What happened next? Hocke hit an unpaid lottery. Cochran offered him a volunteer internship opportunity that was supposed to last for the summer. When it was time to say goodbye, Hocke continued to say hello to as many people as he could. He didn't want to leave.
"You're doing a good job and you're working for free,'' Cochran told him. "Absolutely, stay as long as you'd like."
Those events in 2009 launched Hocke onto a path that led him to UF as Napier's associate head coach/director of strength and conditioning. The Crimson Tide won the first of their six national titles under Saban and planted seeds of a coaching tree that has branched far and wide over the game ever since.
Hocke learned as much as he could, knowing that one day soon he was going to have to get a job that paid, stop sleeping on a friend's sofa, and incorporate more offerings into his diet than the protein shakes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made the players.
"That was a special year," he said. "I was working for free, but this is exactly where I need to be. My eyes are wide open. I worked all day every day and I couldn't get enough."
Hocke eventually met with Cochran and Saban to discuss his future past his internship. They valued his contributions and created a full-time position for him in the weight room. A little more than a year later is when Napier arrived and was introduced to the Saban Process. A look at the Alabama football team's support staff in 2011. (Photo: 2011 Alabama media guide)
The two up-and-coming support staff members, polar opposites on the personality chart, developed a bond. Hocke the fire, Napier the ice. They connected mostly because of their work ethic and eagerness to learn.
"I had an instant attraction to him because I could remember sitting in the back of team meetings and Coach Saban kind of lecturing or what-not, and he and I both pride ourselves on taking good notes,'' Hocke said. "I can remember kind of sharing notes. That's one of my vivid memories. I don't know if he'd remember that, but I remember that."
Napier remembers. Probably has notes, too.
"We had passion for the game. We're competitors. We're sponges at that point,'' Napier said. "I think I'm 30 [at the time] and he's a little bit younger than me. We're there for the same reason. We're trying to learn. We've got aspirations. We want to go places. We want to acquire more knowledge. At the same time, there was a humility relative to your role and respecting what you are supposed to be doing."
Hocke and Napier spent the 2011 season together at Alabama, and then Napier departed for a season on ex-Gators head coach Jim McElwain's staff at Colorado State. Napier returned to Alabama as receivers coach in 2013 and for the next two seasons, he and Hocke worked together closely with Hocke assigned to train the Alabama skill players, including receivers.
After six seasons with the Crimson Tide, Hocke finally said goodbye and made stops at Georgia (2015), Florida State (2016) and Texas A&M (2017) before reconnecting with Napier at Louisiana when Napier became a head coach for the first time in 2018.
As Napier built his first staff, Hocke surfaced quickly as a target at Louisiana the way he did when Napier took over the Gators in December.
"There's a reason why we gave him the associate head coach title. To me, strength and conditioning is a huge component,'' Napier said. "It's very technical relative to the training and the loading and the programming, but even more important is the leadership aspect of his role. I think you are always looking for people that have complementary gifts, where you have to have a shared vision, and I think that's one of the things I really appreciate about Mark.
"We're like-minded, but we're completely different personalities. He has an incredible ability to communicate. He's authentic. You knew pretty early on when you meet the guy, 'hey, this guy is a little different guy, a special guy.' So, very fortunate to get him to join us at Louisiana. He was certainly at the core of what we were able to build there."
As the Gators prepare for the start of spring camp March 15, Hocke and the team's strength and conditioning staff have worked to develop the 2022 team's DNA, a period Napier calls the "Identity Phase." The department is unlike any other in UF football history. Hocke and strength and conditioning assistants Karmichael Dunbar, Edward Thompson and Alex Watkins direct action in the weight room. The staff also features a director of speed and skill development (Tiger Jones), director of player athletic development (Joe Danos), and an assistant for player development (Frank Ogas).
The modernization of approach is part of Napier's master plan, with Hocke doing much of the heavy lifting in the offseason when coaches have limited contact with the players. The early message: small things matter. Every detail counts.
Gators associate head coach/director of strength and conditioning Mark Hocke enters his fifth consecutive season working alongside UF head coach Billy Napier. (Photo: Chloe Hyde/UAA Communications)
"What I tell everyone – the recruits, current players – we don't see a weight room, we see a football field,'' Hocke said. "We believe it's our job to develop the guys year-round. That's on the field and in the weight room. That's in-season, that's offseason. I think we do that by hiring position coaches in the weight room. We have guys in the weight room that are highly skilled, that worked hand-in-hand with position coaches that implement the movement patterns that you get at the various positions.
"Everything that we do in the offseason, and in-season, we want it to apply and translate to them being better when they step between the lines. We pride ourselves on mental development, leadership development. Everything starts with the way you think. Think the right way, eventually you live the right way. Think the right way, eventually you will compete the right way."
It's been 11 years this spring since Hocke and Napier first noticed each other's curiosity in those meeting rooms at Alabama. They not only share a vision with the Gators, they share a past connection that burns fresh in Hocke's mind.
Hocke grew up an LSU fan. His father went to school in Baton Rouge and often took Mark and Brant to games at Tiger Stadium when they were young. Alabama lost to LSU during the regular season and then watched as the Tigers won the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.
It was Alabama's only loss that season, which earned the Crimson Tide a shot at a rematch in the BCS National Championship Game at the Superdome, just a few miles from Jesuit High where three years earlier Hocke served a coach.
Alabama won handily.
"A really special evening,'' he said.
He came to Florida with Napier envisioning more of the same.
"This thing is a sleeping giant in our opinion," he said. "You've seen what this place can do when it's done the right way. We're really excited about the challenge that's in front of us and attacking it one day at a time."
