Updated: Sept. 2021
Brad Roll serves as Tennessee’s sports performance coach for the volleyball and men’s tennis programs in addition to his duties as a performance analyst for all Olympic sports. He came to Rocky Top in July of 2016 and boasts more than 40 years of collegiate and NFL performance training experience.
Roll is one of three sons born to Bill and Antoinette Roll. He was born in Houston, Texas, on July 4, 1958, and grew up there playing football and baseball and throwing the discus. His interest in strength and conditioning began with his high school offensive line coach, who stressed basic weightlifting movements and techniques. This coach had developed an extremely effective year-round strength and conditioning program at a time when most high school programs, and even many collegiate programs, did not have one.
A talented football center, Roll earned a starting role at Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, and later transferred to Stephen F. Austin, where he started every game and was a team captain in both his junior and senior years (1978-79). Role transitioned from a player toa graduate assistant at SFA and soon realized that no one was in charge of the off-season football training program. Roll, who excelled at and had a passion for strength and conditioning, was soon given responsibility for overseeing the off-season program.
Roll received his bachelor's degree, followed by his master's degree, from Stephen F. Austin in 1980. He then left for Southwestern Louisiana to do pursue postgraduate work. There, he also worked as a graduate assistant with the football program, which did not employ a full-time strength and conditioning coach. As he had done at his alma mater,Roll took over the training program. Soon, coaching staffsfrom the school's other sports saw the improvements that the football team was making and asked Roll to work with their student-athletes. As a result, Roll became the university's first full-time strength coach in 1983 (the school had by then changed its named to Louisiana-Lafayette).
Roll took advantage of great learning opportunities early in his career, including his first exposure to Olympic-style weightlifting when studying under Hall of Fame coach Gayle Hatch. During the 15-year Bowl Championship Series (BCS) era, Hatch's proteges, using the "Hatch System of Strength & Conditioning," won nine football national titles. Hatch's methods had a profound impact on Roll's future coaching endeavors.
Roll studied at the Moscow Sports Institute during the summers of 1985 and 1986, and spent much of 1987 with the German Olympic weightlifting coaching and training staff in Leipzig, Germany.
Roll left Louisiana-Lafayette in 1987 for a position at Kansas working closely with the Jayhawks'men's basketball program, and he contributed to KU's 1988 national championship. He then transitioned to the University of Miami (Fla.) in 1989, During his four-year tenure in Coral Gables, he helped the Hurricanes capture two national championships - in 1989 and 1991. In 1993, Roll moved north and took over as the head strength and conditioning coach for the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers for two seasons before returning to Miami, this time as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Miami Dolphins.
In 2004, he joined the Buffalo Bills' staff as head strength and conditioning coach for two seasons, followed by another two-year stint with the St. Louis Rams. From 2008-2011, Roll was head strength and conditioning coach for the Oakland Raiders. Then, in 2012, he left the NFL and returned to the collegiate ranks for a brief stint with the University of Southern California. In 2013, he accepted a position with the Cleveland Browns, and the following year he returned to the University of Miami (Fla.) as a consultant and was hired as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for football, where he was responsible for overseeing the Catapult GPS Sports Science System.
Over the years, Roll has been influenced by many great coaches: Doc Kreis, Al Miller and Tim Jorgensen, to name a few. His many honors and accolades include serving on the Executive Committee of the NFL Coaches Association for 13 years, induction into the professional category of the USA Strength &Conditioning Coaches Hall of Fame in 2003 and 2004induction into Stephen F. Austin's prestigious"Jacks of Honor."
A well know and respected name in the field of strength and conditioning, Roll boasts 20 seasons in the NFL and more than 40 years of elite performance training experience.
