After being named the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' new head coach on January 9, Bruce Arians moved quickly to fill out most of his coaching staff. One bit of business remained after that first rush of hires: a new strength and conditioning staff. On Thursday, the Buccaneers announced that they had finalized that crew, led by Head Strength & Conditioning Coach Anthony Piroli.
Piroli, who most recently held the same post at Mississippi State and was on Arians' staff with the Arizona Cardinals prior to that, will head up a four-man staff that includes Speed & Conditioning Coach Roger Kingdom and Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coaches Michael Stacchiotti and Chad Wade.
Wade is returning for his sixth season on the Bucs' strength staff. Stacchiotti will continue to work with Piroli after serving as an assistant for the Bulldogs in 2018. Kingdom, a former Olympic Gold Medalist, also worked with Arians in Arizona.
Piroli had two stints at Mississippi State sandwiched around his three years as an assistant strength & conditioning coach on Arians' staff with the Cardinals, first as an assistant in 2014 and then as the head of the strength staff last year. He began his coaching career in 2007 at his alma mater, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, then moved on to the University of Pittsburgh for three years before working at Power Train Sports Institute in Pittsburgh (2009-11). He was Co-Owner and Director of Sports Performance at Evolution Sports in Pittsburgh from 2011-14 before returning to the coaching ranks. He also served as a volunteer strength coach for Ohio State in the summer of 2013.
Kingdom won his two gold medals in the 110-meter hurdles in 1984 and 1988 and is one of only two competitors ever to win that event in consecutive Olympics. He was an assistant strength and conditioning coach with the Cardinals for all but one of Arians' five years at the helm, arriving in 2014. Prior to that he spent 10 years at California University of Pennsylvania working with the track and field and cross country teams. Kingdom comes to the Bucs from UCF, where he served as the Interim Director of Track & Field/Cross Country in 2018.
Before retiring from active competition in 1999, Kingdom had a sustained run of success in hurdling. In addition to his Olympic titles, he won gold medals at the Pan American Games in 1983 and 1995, the World Cup in 1989, the World University Games in 1989 and the Goodwill Games in 1990. A five-time U.S. outdoor champion, he won a trio of honors in 1989: USA Track and Field Athlete of the Year, Jesse Owens International Amateur Athlete of the Year and Track and Field News Athlete of the Year. Kingdom was also an NCAA champion hurdler at Pittsburgh, though he originally came to the Panthers on a football scholarship.
Before joining Piroli in Starkville last year, Stacchiotti spent one year on the staff at the University of Cincinnati (2017) and two at Colorado State (2015-16). His coaching career actually began at Mississippi State, where he was a collegiate intern in 2015. He had also previously coached on the prep level in Ohio and played football at Baldwin Wallace University.
Wade originally joined the Buccaneers in 2014 as part of Lovie Smith's first staff and remained in his position as a strength & conditioning coach under Dirk Koetter. Prior to that he spent 18 years on the staff at the University of Nebraska, working with the men's and women's basketball teams while also coordinating workouts for members of the football team. He earned the designation of Master Strength and Conditioning Coach from the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in 2013.
