Lifetime Achievement Award
Bob Ward
NFL Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year
Mark Lovat
Green Bay Packers
The Champions Award
Jerry Palmieri
New York Giants
Bob Ward has coached Olympic champions, football and track champions, is the former director of sports science for Advocare and was the Sports Scientist and Conditioning Coach for the Dallas Cowboys from 1976 to 1989, taking two trips to the Super Bowl with them. Continuing his passion for sport, he currently competes in Masters Track and Field and Masters Weightlifting, holding World and American records in both sports and currently is the Director of Sports Science Network (SSN) in Dallas, TX. Bob,who received his PED from Indiana University, has authored books on sports speed and nutrition and developed a software program based on forms of martial arts that is used by numerous colleges and the NFL. (www.sportsscience.com)
Mark has been with the Green Bay Packers for 13 years and is in his second year as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator. (Even his summer internships were in the Packer’s weight room.) The son of former Green Bay offensive line coach Tom Lovat was honored last year with the Super Bowl Achievement award and has been nominated the Sports Medicine/Rehabilitation Specialist of the Year. An accomplished athlete himself, Lovat earned a Division I baseball scholarship to Butler University in Indianapolis, and received the Helen Tewksbury Award for academic and athletic leadership during the course of his playing career.
The Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Giants from 2004-16, Jerry Palmieri is one of the NFL’s most respected conditioning coaches. Prior to his tenure with the Giants, he spent eight years with the Jacksonville Jaguars and one at Boston College, moving with head coach Tom Coughlin. Jerry has been honored as the 2007 Samson’s NFL Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year and by the Professional Strength and Conditioning Coaches Society as Coach of the Year. Palmieri is also a three-time New Jersey Golden Gloves champion (1976-78) and competed in international competition as a member of the 1978 and 1979 USA Boxing Teams.