At Spartan Sports & Wellness in Bel Air, Bill Ackerman trains a number of athletes from basketball, lacrosse, football, soccer and other sports. During the COVID-19 pandemic, with a lack of in-game opportunities to improve, athletes have found solace in working out at the Harford County training facility.
His facility is covered with state-of-the-art equipment including motorless treadmills, training bands, ropes, speed ladders, weights and more. The air flows in through the garage doors, giving the gym an old-school feel.
Ackerman lives by one motto.
“Sweat the little things — that’s our philosophy that we want to go by,” Ackerman said. “If you can sweat the little things and do the little things correctly ... you can play well. You can build that camaraderie and team chemistry, those are the type of things [that are built].”
The athletes come in to discuss grades, homework, home life and other topics. There are players from West Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and other areas that drive up to take part in Ackerman’s training exercises. On this specific day, four lacrosse athletes came in to train with one another, followed by a number of football players from Concordia Prep, McDonogh and John Carroll.
The 2000 Edgewood graduate played football for his high school, then for three years at West Virginia Wesleyan. He was an assistant coach under current John Carroll head football coach Ken Brinkman for 13 seasons at North Harford. Brinkman was Ackerman’s teacher from grades 6-12 and having that relationship motivated him down the line. Ackerman eventually realized that his passion for training athletes and others to maximize their abilities could be a career path 16 years ago.
“I always say [that] I get to make an impact in somebody’s life every day,” Ackerman said. “I might not be able to make a million dollars, I’m not on the stock market every day, but being able to make an impact in an athlete’s life or even an adult’s life, that’s where the value comes. That’s my million dollars — being passionate about what I do. Growing up, we didn’t have many mentors like we do now, so I hope to mentor these kids and be there for them one day.”
James Madison women’s lacrosse teammates Taylor Marchetti (C. Milton Wright) and Charlotte Haggerty (John Carroll) and Marchetti’s younger sister, Grace, are training alongside soon-to-be University of North Carolina midfielder Cole Herbert (Calvert Hall). The Dukes only played six games prior to the 2020 spring season being cancelled, going 5-1 and taking down two top-25 programs in #23 Virginia Tech and #21 Penn State.
The added importance of improving their fitness is exacerbated by the fact that they haven’t played a full year of lacrosse in nearly a year and a half due to COVID-19.
Taylor Marchetti has trained with Ackerman since she was 12 years old and now her sister, a middle schooler, is at the same age and preparing for a lacrosse season that may never come.
“Especially with everything that’s so unknown, we never know what’s going to happen in the next week or in a couple of months,” Taylor Marchetti said. “So, I think it’s so important that we come here and train as best as we can so that we are prepared, in shape and ready to go with whatever comes at us.”
The younger Marchetti sister plays club lacrosse for Sky Walkers 2025 Blue team and keeps up with the older athletes, even with her age. She’s part of a group of younger athletes who train with Ackerman, who creates a dynamic workout program for each of the players’ sports, positions on the field, ages and body types. The seventh-grader spoke glowingly of her trainer and the environment.
“I work out with my sister and people who are older than me and they push me to become a better person,” Grace Marchetti said. “I’ve been training with Bill since I was like in the fourth grade. ... [He] pushes you to be a better player — bigger, stronger, faster and I don’t know how I would be in my sport if I was without him.”
In a match-up against Connecticut on Feb. 16, Haggerty tore her ACL.
With more time to heal after a shortened season, Haggerty has been able to rehab under the watchful eyes of Ackerman, who additionally assists with athletes who are recuperating from injuries. The majority of her training exercises consist of strengthening her quadriceps around her recovering knee and hip flexor exercises, regaining the lateral quickness and explosiveness that one would lose with an injury of that magnitude.
“He’s been super helpful as soon as he found out it tore, he was reaching out to me and making sure that I was OK and everything,” Haggerty said. “A week after surgery, my team went to Rutgers and had a game there and I came home because I couldn’t travel yet because I was on pain meds and everything — I came in [to Spartan Sports & Wellness] that week and was helping me with mobility. That’s really nice because he was like ‘Come in, we’ll start working it immediately.’ If it’s in pain, we’ll modify it to something else.”
Herbert, who played both football and lacrosse at Calvert Hall, will be heading to UNC in less than a week. He began working out with Ackerman and a number of other athletes just a few days after the cancellation of the season. The five-star UNC signee believes that the extra preparation that he’s taken with Ackerman will give him an advantage on the field.
“I just started about three to four months ago when quarantine started,” Herbert said. “I had always worked out at Calvert Hall with my coaches, but when all of that shut down, one of my Calvert Hall coaches recommended it. I’ve enjoyed it and it’s been a lot of good training. I feel like he’s doing a good job with me doing sprints — banded sprints, weighted runs and just getting me in shape. Everything that he does with me will translate directly to the field. Nobody else is working out like this every day like this during quarantine.”