5 Questions: Meet Ben Armer, Ball State football’s director of strength and conditioning

The Star Press

Ben Armer is Ball State football's director of strength and conditioning. He's worked in this role since 2016.

MUNCIE, Ind. — Ben Armer might not score touchdowns for Ball State’s football program or make highlight-reel interceptions, but the Wisconsin native’s effect on how the Cardinals perform each week is significant and it affects each player on the roster.

Armer is the team’s director of strength and conditioning.

After a playing career as a punter at Western Michigan that saw him earn All-Mid-American Conference recognition, Armer’s path has taken him from the Broncos to the Cardinals to the Miami (Ohio) RedHawks and back to the Cardinals. Armer served as a strength and conditioning intern at Western Michigan in 2013 before he spent 2014 as a graduate assistant for strength and conditioning at Ball State and 2015 as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Miami (Ohio).

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Since 2016, Armer has worked as Ball State’s director of strength and conditioning. And he took some time with the Star Press to discuss why he gravitated to this side of athletics, which Cardinals athlete has impressed him the most and more:

Why strength and conditioning? Why this path over another?

“I grew up in Wisconsin. I grew up playing hockey. And when I was 12 years old I actually got this VHS tape of the Wayne Gretzky instructional video on how to play hockey at a high level. Last thing that he talked about was the importance of weight training and staying in shape to play at the highest level that you can, and so I watched that and I immediately went down to our basement, got my dad’s old weight set out, started lifting weights and kind of fell in love with it ever since.

“We had a high school program that was really big on it and it just kind of became a part of what I needed to do to play athletics as best that I could, because I was never a gifted athlete. I had to really rely on being able to train myself better than my opponents that were more athletic and it gave me opportunities to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t done that kind of training. So, I’d say that’s where it probably started.”

Playing for Western Michigan as a punter and then spending the time you have in the MAC in various strength and conditioning roles, you’ve been around the MAC for a while. Is the conference any different now than when you first came in your first year of college?

“I don’t think so, to be honest with you. It’s always a blue-collar conference. It’s a conference that plays with a chip on its shoulder. A lot of times you have kids that are getting passed up by the so-called bigger school and those kids come in and they want to prove those early teams on their schedule wrong that are typically Power-Five opponents. And then once you get into MAC play it doesn’t change. You’re playing a lot — a majority of the conference is Midwest so a lot of the kids are Midwest and a lot of kids know each other. It’s very competitive once you get into conference play.

“Maybe the style of play has changed a little bit. I can tell you, with the internships, the GA-ships, the full-time roles that I’ve had, I can tell you there’s been more of an emphasis on the conditioning aspect and the speed aspect because you see a lot of the fast-tempo offenses and things like that where your training style has to somewhat replicate that kind of movement that you have on the field. That’d be about the only thing. As far as the mentality and the kind of kids it’s bringing in, I’d say it’s the exact same.”

What challenges might you face as a director of strength and conditioning in the MAC that you may not face at the likes of the Big Ten or another Power Five conference? And how do you try to address those?

“I think the biggest thing is you have to learn how to do a lot with very little. And that’s not a knock on anything that any program in our conference has, it’s just that’s the nature of the beast when you’re talking about Power Five programs that have — you can call it endless resources. They have a lot of opportunities, kind of, afforded to them that maybe be we don’t and we can’t use that as a crutch, can’t use that as an excuse. We have to find a way to get the same thing done that they’re getting done by just taking a different approach.

“I’ll use an example with what we’ve done nutritionally, being able to feed our guys more, we’ve had to think outside the box to be able to get our guys enough meals that we otherwise couldn’t afford if we don’t, like I said, use another approach. You have to address those on a daily basis. A strength coach in this conference has got to wear a lot of hats outside of just being a strength coach. You have to maintain your room. You have to hold things together on the nutrition end, sometimes on the sport psychology end, sometimes on the end of rehab and getting guys back and trying to continue to reduce risk of injury. It’s just something that kind of comes with the role that I think a lot of mid-major programs would agree they have to do the same thing.”

In your time at Ball State, is there a player who has most impressed you with what they’ve been able to accomplish?

“I don’t think I have to think too hard about it, to be honest with you. I think the work that (redshirt senior offensive lineman) Danny Pinter has done, up until this point, he stands out to me the most. That’s a player that has welcomed a position change. He’s had complete buy-in from the time even I was here as an assistant to the time I’ve been here as the director. His mentality hasn’t changed. It’s gotten more mature, but he’s attacked everything the same and worked himself from being a guy that redshirted to a guy that started as a tight end to a guy that started as a tackle. His demeanor and the way that he goes about every single day, I think every program could use a lot more players like him to have for the success of that team.”

Who wins in a punting competition between you and (current Ball State punter) Nathan Snyder?

“All right, let me put it to you this way, picking up a ball and punting it the same way you did, it’s not like riding a bike. So, I’m going to without a doubt give that nod to Nate Snyder. But I am going to put my best foot forward, and out of 10 balls, I might win a few. Let’s just put it that way.”

Jordan Guskey covers Ball State and East Central Indiana high schools at the Star Press. Contact him at (765) 213-5813, jmguskey@muncie.gannett.com or @JordanGuskey.