Strength coach Mike Kent a strong addition to CSU Rams' football staff

Colorado State University strength coach Mike Kent works in the weight room with grad assistants during a summer workout. Mike Kent, who has been CSU's strength coach for nearly 35 years, was photographed at the school on Thursday, June 12, 2014. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

FORT COLLINS It wasn't that Mike Kent didn't appreciate the new state-of-the-art weight room.

After all, what wasn't to like about the spacious room, part of a $16 million facility, completed in 2009, with towering windows built adjacent to Moby Arena?

It was simply that Kent, upon being hired by Colorado State in 2012 as the football team's strength and conditioning coach, felt a closer connection to a room down a dimly lit hallway 50 yards away.

"The first thing that struck me when I got down here was you look on the walls and see the Mountain West championships," Kent said. "We said: How about we borrow from the past and rekindle that spirit as one of our goals?"

Kent, a 53-year-old with a booming voice befitting a drill sergeant, first saw that spirit as an opposing coach. He was the strength guru for Louisville from 2000 to 2003 when the Cardinals and Rams played three tooth-and-nail games decided by a combined nine points. Jim McElwain, CSU's head coach now, was a Louisville assistant during that stretch.

"Of all the teams we played back then," Kent said, "there is a thing called 'earned respect,' and Colorado State earned it. They played hard, they were precise and they didn't make mistakes."

When he arrived at CSU, Kent moved the football team's strength program into the old Everitt weight room, a modest, windowless space with neat rows of weights and benches.

"I like it because it is secluded and it's just us," tight end Kivon Cartwright said of the room affectionately labeled "the dungeon" by players. "It's not very glamorous, but it's a good place to stay focused and get hard work in."

Kent's work in the dungeon the past three years has paid dividends for a program aiming to take the next step after winning its first bowl game in December since 2008.

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Strength coach Mike Kent a strong addition to CSU Rams' football staff