Speed Is Their Specialty

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver J.J. Stokes was too busy sucking air to discuss the workout he had just completed with 15 other players under the supervision of speed-enhancement coach Ray Farris. Green Bay Packers backup quarterback Steve Bono's body language—he was wobbling in small circles in a daze—said that he wasn't available to comment on the various sprint drills Farris had conducted at Menlo College, in Atherton, Calif., on this sunny morning in June. "We only worked three hours today," said Farris, 32, who also trains Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders and Philadelphia Eagles running back Ricky Watters. "I decided to take it easy on them."

Subjecting themselves to torturous workouts under merciless speed-enhancement coaches is the latest off-season rage among NFL players. Their motives are, of course, profits. For athletes, quickness equals leverage in contract negotiations. "It's mandatory that you run well to enhance your value," says agent Roosevelt Barnes, whose clients include Lions rookie cornerback Bryant Westbrook and Arizona Cardinals defensive end Simeon Rice. Agents and players believe that a speed trainer can add millions to a player's net worth by slicing hundredths of a second from his 40-yard-dash time.

Anxious draftees and determined veterans enlist for three to six months of off-season training, at about $500 per week, with specialists such as Farris; Thomas Shaw, who works out of New Orleans; and Rahn Sheffield, who is based in San Diego. Speed specialists, unlike personal trainers and track coaches, concentrate on making players faster through conditioning programs designed specifically for football.

The demands of these programs are borderline sadistic. Nothing satisfies some speed-enhancement coaches more than the sight of an All-Pro dropping to his knees and gasping for air after a workout. "Some trainers only do what the athlete thinks needs to be done," says Farris, who was a speedy cornerback at Utah State from 1983 to '85. "I know how to train winners. When they're tired and saying, 'F—-you, Ray!' I know I'm doing my job."

The suffering often pays off. Last April one of Shaw's projects, Florida State offensive lineman Walter Jones, who stands 6'5" and weighs 305 pounds, shocked NFL scouts at a workout by running the 40 in 4.57 seconds, easily surpassing his previous best of 4.7. Afterward the exhilarated Jones ignored the open arms of both his college position coach, Jimmy Heggins, and his agent, Barnes, and gave Shaw a bear hug. "Coach, thank you," gushed Jones, who was selected by the Seattle Seahawks with the sixth pick of the draft. "I never could have run it without you."

While under Sheffield's tutelage in the early 1990s, Tennessee Oilers running back Ronnie Harmon, then with the San Diego Chargers, cut his 40 time from 4.6 to 4.3, a speed most defenders can't match. Harmon became one of the league's most prolific receivers out of the backfield.

Such tortoise-to-hare transformations haven't been enough to persuade NFL general managers to put speed-enhancement specialists on the team payroll. "Most NFL coaches recommend that their players train with these guys after the season," says New England Patriots defensive coordinator Steve Sidwell. "But teams don't have them on staff because they could interfere with the team trainer's own program."

"If I was on an NFL team," says Shaw, "I'd have to fight to get players to do my workouts. During the off-season most of them are just happy sitting around spending their money."

Farris's notoriously tough eight-week hill-training sessions have humbled even the fittest athletes. When Watters and Sanders first attempted the winding 2.5-mile trail marked by Farris up and down a San Carlos, Calif., slope, "they could barely do it," Farris says. "We kicked their asses on that thing." This drill is borrowed from Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, with refinements suggested by conditioning freak Roger Craig, the former 49ers running back. The sessions require a full range of motion in the leg muscles, thus strengthening the entire leg.

Field work, such as the short dashes and wide receiver pass-pattern drills that KO'd Stokes & Co. last summer, maintain the last-twitch muscle fibers essential to acceleration. Stokes's teammate and fellow wide-out Jerry Rice has also worked out under Farris for the past several years, but he suffered a knee injury in the season-opening loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Aug. 31 and is sidelined for most of the season. Farris will help Rice rehabilitate the knee, beginning in November, in hopes of Rice returning at the end of the season.