Charlie Robinson would have been the exception at Texas. As a six-foot, 170-pound high school senior, he wasn't the physical specimen that most Division I power programs seek at defensive back.

Likewise for Kevin Monroe. When the Greenville native reported to his first fall camp, he did so an inch taller than Robinson and seven pounds heavier.

Neither possessed intimidating physiques when they arrived at East Carolina, but both were the rule for the Pirates. Where most big-time programs were landing athletes ready-made for Division I, ECU often relied on players who flew under the radar, but possessed the work ethic necessary to develop into major success stories who defied the odds.

For Robinson and Monroe, it all started in the weight room.

By the time Robinson completed his first semester at ECU, he had pushed his weight to 200 pounds. Monroe didn't have quite as much ground to make up and tipped the scales at 192 after his first year. Neither lost a step in their 40-yard dash time.

The stories don't end there. Subtract Monroe and Robinson and insert Larry Shannon and Rod Coleman. Toss in Leonard "Skinner" Henry or Jeff Kerr for good measure.

All are prime examples of one of the basic foundations that led to unparalleled success during the Steve Logan era — the importance placed on strength and conditioning.

"Player development is huge anywhere you go, which is evident by Mack Brown taking his strength and conditioning coach from Carolina (to Texas)," Monroe said. "If not the top priority for a coach, it's one of the top to have a very conditioned and a very strong team.

"Yes, player development is huge at East Carolina, but I don't think any school can get by without it. Because even if you get these big, strong kids out of high school, they've still got to maintain it. Otherwise, they'll get fat and slow."

Robinson, who finished his career in 2001, also firmly believes in the importance of conditioning and says its role is magnified at a school like ECU.

"East Carolina was kind of viewed as a secondary school in terms of talent when compared to some of the teams that we were playing — Miami, Syracuse, and the West Virginias of the world," Robinson said. "For us, somehow, someway, we had to create an advantage.

"(Strength) coach (Jeff) Connors, Coach Logan, and the coaching staff's whole philosophy was that we were going to be stronger than any other team in terms of conditioning. Late in games, that's where we're really going to make our push to win the game. From a mental and a physical standpoint, strength and conditioning was the heart of our program."

It was a philosophy on which the Pirates trekked many miles.

Leveraging momentum off that miracle 1991 season during which East Carolina finished 11-1 and No. 9 nationally, Logan developed a mentality that the Pirates would be a team prepared to win on the last play of the game. It was a mantra not intended to be interpreted literally, instead meaning that ECU would have the mental and physical toughness to fight for four quarters.

Where other teams might fold late in games, the Pirates would be stronger. If there were to be any late-game comebacks, they would be manufactured by those underdogs in purple and gold.

Miami, Syracuse, West Virginia, and Virginia Tech all fell victim to that theory.

"Conditioning was huge, if not the defining factor," Monroe said. "Simply because we were not the most talented team week in and week out when we stepped on the field.

"But the fact that we were always — not sometimes — we were always the most conditioned team, we would win ballgames. We played Miami in '99 and they were a better team than us. That's just a fact. That's evident by probably 8-10 of those guys are starting in the NFL right now. We outlasted them. They got a big lead, but we came back. That's all conditioning and the mindset of the players."

Trailing 23-3 to a Hurricanes team that boasted NFL all-stars Santana Moss, Clinton Portis, and Reggie Wayne, East Carolina mounted one of the most memorable comebacks in its proud history.

But this wasn't a shot in the dark by some perennial wannabe. The Pirates' 27-23 rally was reminiscent of previous comebacks, such as the '92 Peach Bowl victory over N.C. State and the '95 ambush of a Donovan McNabb-led Syracuse squad in the Carrier Dome.

When the Pirates did tote a lead into the fourth quarter, good luck trying to swipe it away. That was the attitude instilled by Logan, and it all started in the weight room when a new flock of freshmen arrived each summer to be whipped into shape by Connors.

"For me, it was a real shock to the body," Robinson said. "Coming in as a freshman, where you thought you were doing everything you could — lifting three days a week and doing everything that they send you in the packet.

"I think coming here to East Carolina and learning from Coach Connors how to lift properly and him really being on your case made a huge difference. Each set was monitored on kind of like what you could call a military type of lift schedule. Each set was blown out and whistled. He made sure everybody got their reps in and that everybody was rotating through and getting their sets in. It was a very structured and very monitored type of weight program."

Robinson says that mindset changed following the 2000 season when Connors left for North Carolina and Jim Whitten took over the reigns. Whitten, who came to ECU from Charlotte where he oversaw the 49ers strength program and worked primarily with men's basketball, had a less rigid approach.

Though Whitten did design the workouts, players were on the honor system to complete their lifts. As a result, the athletes sometimes cut corners by abandoning the Murphy Center before their workouts were complete.

While Whitten's philosophy isn't foreign to the profession, many coaches prefer to have more control over training sessions.

"There are a lot of different ways that work," said Rob Oviatt, the Assistant Director of Athletics for Physical Development at Washington State. "When we train all of our football players here when they are in the weight room, we control the sets, we control the reps between stations, and they have a certain pace that they have to work at when they are in this room.

"We don't believe in buffet-style lifting here. What I mean by that is, you come in the weight room, you get a card out of a file and you go around the room at your convenience and your pace and complete what is on the card. We don't do that. Our workouts here are short, brief, and intense."

Whitten left East Carolina last year when then-coach John Thompson decided to take a new direction with the strength program. Traditionally, the strength coaching hire at ECU has been the responsibility of the head football coach.

Thompson chose John Grieco, whom he knew from Florida and who oversaw the conditioning of the Gators' baseball program. Greico's contract ends soon, and new coach Skip Holtz must decide either to remain with the status quo or go in a different direction.

The strength and conditioning hire has received a lot of focus of late because many former players have expressed their concern about what they perceive as a major decline in that area of the program. If you look at the manner in which the Pirates have lost games over the last four years, that theory would seem to have merit.

Regardless of whom Holtz hires, Oviatt says it's ideal for the head coach and strength coach to be on the same page.

"We're all support staff to the head football coach and the head sport coach," Oviatt said. "It doesn't matter how old you are or how much experience you have, we're all support people.

"Hopefully you have a great relationship with your coach and you share the same philosophies. But ultimately, the head sport coach is going to set the tone for what kinds of demands he wants put on his athletes in the weight room and when they're conditioned."

But it's the job of the strength coach to figure out the how.

For Oviatt, that method is an intense, structured regimen. It's more of an in-your-face, confrontational style that is designed to not only add bulk, but also inject discipline into players as well as motivate them.

A multi-tiered approach is necessary because of the many roles a strength coach must fill.

"One of the great stereotypes that has cost our profession dearly in terms of salary over the many years has been the stereotype that strength coaches kind of just roll the ball out at recess," Oviatt said. "They stand there, they yell, they're a big lughead.

"Those days are over where you hire somebody and have him just stand around in a weight room. There's certainly a science to this and there is a methodology that you have to follow to write programs to get people stronger, bigger, faster. Now, the other half of that is it's a people profession, too. You have to motivate, and the biggest part of motivating kids is getting to know them."

Strength coaches are the only members of the football staff who have access to players 365 days a year. That magnifies the importance of making sure you have the right guy in place to oversee a player's mental and physical development.

A player's attitude and actions indeed are traced back to the head coach. As the figurehead of the program, he sets the tone and lays the foundation.

An invaluable part of that blueprint is the strength coach, who is the hands-on source from whom players develop toughness both mentally and physically.

"Mental toughness and discipline are very closely related," Oviatt said. "Mental toughness, to me, creates and improves physical toughness.

"I firmly believe that the man who mentally won't do it is the same as the man who physically can't do it. Mental toughness is something that we preach in here all the time and hopefully it is also going to improve and create physical toughness as well."

Both are areas in which East Carolina must improve for it to rediscover the success it experienced for much of the past decade. As Holtz begins what will be a massive rebuilding project, it's one of many areas that must be addressed.

If you ask former standouts like Monroe and Robinson, it's a good chance they'll say it's the most important.