When Jamie Abrams became the football coach at Cedartown High School and addressed the program during his first day on the job, he noticed Nick Chubb had joined the players to listen to the introductory speech.
“Like he's on the team,” Abrams, now in his third season at the helm of Cedartown, said Tuesday by phone.
Although Chubb has established himself as an NFL star in the four seasons since the Browns drafted him in the second round (35th overall) in 2018, the running back never left his small-town Georgia high school behind.
“Nick just likes being one of the guys,” said Cedartown principal Scott Hendrix, the school's football coach when Chubb dominated on the gridiron there.
A couple of Chubb's weight-lifting videos from this past spring went viral on social media because people were blown away by the feats of strength.
However, the location is more instructive than anything else about the Chubb experience. Those clips were filmed in Cedartown's weight room, and Chubb is not just there once in a while. He's there virtually every day in the offseason, unless he's working out instead at Browns headquarters in Berea or vacationing. It's been this way throughout his entire NFL career and whenever he would have a break at the University of Georgia.
“It pretty much made me the player I am now,” Chubb told the Beacon Journal on Wednesday in the locker room at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus. “With my high school trainer and what I've been doing since high school, I've had a lot of success, so I didn't want to change that part of my routine.”
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The strategy has paid off. Chubb has earned a Pro Bowl selection in each of the past three years and, with the Browns on the verge of beginning the 2022 season with Sunday's opener on the road against the Carolina Panthers, he feels stronger than ever.
It's an encouraging development for the Browns coming off a disappointing record of 8-9, especially because heavily leaning on Chubb during quarterback Deshaun Watson's 11-game suspension may be the offense's most logical route to success.
“I want to be my biggest and fastest and strongest every year,” Chubb, 26, said. “I feel like that's helped me thus far, so I just continue to do it. I don't really like change.”
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The philosophy is evident in Chubb's offseason approach. Instead of frequenting a state-of-the-art facility and employing high-priced trainers like many other NFL players, he simply returns to his old stomping grounds.
“Knowing Nick, he's probably the least fancy person ever,” Browns four-time Pro Bowl left guard Joel Bitonio said. “For him to go back to his high school and be that guy for them, it makes too much sense.
“When he goes back to his high school, he puts in that work, and he's motivated to be the best he can be.”
Mike Worthington is vital to it all. He has been the football team's defensive line, tight ends and assistant head coach and boys track and field head coach at Cedartown since 2006. He runs the weight room and has been training Chubb since he was 14. Their introduction materialized through Chubb's older brother, Zach, another former Cedartown athlete. Chubb was born and raised in Cedartown, where his mother, Lavelle, raised her two boys and daughter, Neidra.
“Words can't even explain how much [Worthington] means to me and how important him and his family is to me,” Chubb said. “He is like a father to me beyond football. If I need anything, I come to him. I owe everything to him. Every year, he makes sure I'm in the best shape ever, makes sure I'm strong and fast. He doesn't take it easy on me. He pushes me every day.
“He knows me so well. I could go pay a bunch of money somewhere I don't know, and they could kind of take it easy on me. That's what I feel like would happen. They wouldn't really know me that well. The biggest thing for me is just staying down, staying humble and going back to my roots.”
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Worthington calls Chubb “a dinosaur” because he considers his pupil an old-school “throwback.” Chubb typically avoids hype as if it's a linebacker in pursuit. He's famously low-key and fiercely loyal to his Cedartown support system.
Those characteristics have always stood out to Worthington, even more than Chubb's talent.
“When other kids his age would be horseplaying, he was quiet, he would pay attention and he would work,” Worthington said. “He had a certain amount of skill level at a young age, but it wasn't an overpowering skill level. His maturity was always what impressed more than anything. It was always, 'I know you can be good. It just depends on how hard you're willing to work.' We didn't realize he was willing to work as hard as anybody would ever push him. He's not going to get outworked.
“He's just going to do the right things. He's going to take care of his body. He's going to do the things champions do. He's not going to go out and act like a lot of other people. He's not going to vacation a whole lot. He's going to come back, and he's going to work. He's smart enough to understand what he's been doing has been successful, and he's not going to deviate from what's been doing. A lot of people have success, and with that success, they get other people, money, and that distracts them. He will not allow those things to become a distraction.”
Worthington was one of three people in Cedartown's weight room spotting Chubb when he squatted 675 pounds in May with a traditional barbell and 610 pounds for two repetitions in July using a Tsunami Bar Max, which is designed to bend. The videos spread like wildfire online.
Chubb also power cleaned 425 pounds earlier this year at Cedartown. So far, he has achieved his goal by adding 5 pounds to his maximum power clean each offseason of his NFL career. The 675-pound squat represented a personal best, too.
“I usually stop at 650 just to play it safe,” Chubb said, “but I felt better this year, so I went for it.”
In training camp, Browns running backs coach Stump Mitchell revealed Chubb's squat videos grabbed his attention.
“The passion that Nick has during the season is exemplified by the things he does during the offseason,” Mitchell said. On the other hand, Mitchell added watching the footage, “Hurt my knees and got me concerned because Nick doesn’t wear a [weight-lifting] belt when he squats.”
Worthington and Chubb insisted they were actually being somewhat conservative with the weight used in those videos.
“I don't know how much I can do,” Chubb said. “It's just being smart about it.”
A little-known fact about Chubb is he won a state title in weight lifting as a senior in high school. He recalls benching 405 pounds, power cleaning 395 pounds and squatting 590 or 600 pounds back then.
“Hell, there's no telling what he could do,” Worthington said. “There's a fine line. At the end of the day, I've got to tell myself, 'Look, he's not a power lifter.' There's a point [where I ask], 'Is it worth it or not?' But we're going to push. That's the thing that separates him.
“A lot of guys have done that kind of training. It's just as you get a certain age, it's tough. They'd rather go to a speed coach and do all these fancy ladders and cones but, to be honest with you, those things are not going to allow him to break tackles. Nick is intelligent enough that he understands in order to the do the things he does that you've got to be put the work in, and you've got to be strong. That's why he breaks so many tackles. That's why people bounce off him.”
Chubb isn't the only one who benefits from his bond with his alma mater.
“The way he carries himself, he's the perfect role model for our kids,” said Hendrix, who will drive from Cedartown to Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend the Week 1 game between the Browns and Panthers.
When Chubb was a senior at Cedartown, Hendrix said the player taught incoming freshmen how to insert the pads into their football pants and set up their lockers without being asked. Abrams explained there is a pheasant hunt fundraiser for the track team during which volunteers drive golf carts to retrieve birds. Chubb subjected himself to fetching duty and took one of Abrams' children along for the ride.
In other words, Chubb doesn't strike the people at Cedartown as someone who wants special treatment.
“He walks in the door, and we go to work,” Worthington said. “It's not like, 'Hey, here's Nick! Let's take pictures!' I mean, I shut that down.”
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Chubb has guided several of Cedartown's standout players, including Clemson running back Kobe Pace, West Virginia running back Tony Mathis Jr. and Georgia linebacker C.J. Washington. They have followed Chubb's lead by making a habit of returning to Cedartown for workouts.
“Every year, there's a new kid that comes up who I kind of take under my wing,” said Chubb, whose Browns teammates recently voted a captain.
“It's just important to me to go back home where I'm from and kind of lead those guys in the right direction. I didn't have that when I was coming up, so I feel like maybe I could have learned things differently if I did. I'm trying to be that mentor for them.”
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Senior fullback and defensive end Patrick Gardner is the latest Cedartown player to forge a friendship with Chubb. A Batman fanatic, Chubb said he nicknamed Gardner after another superhero, the Hulk, because “he's probably the strongest kid there.” The two became workout partners. Gardner stood behind Chubb in both of the aforementioned squat videos to provide a spot.
“I'm just thinking, 'Wow! That's crazy,'” Gardner said. “He's in the NFL. He doesn't have to put that weight on, but he still comes in there and does it like it's nothing. I just want to be like him.
“I've never seen Nick get comfortable. He always does his rep like it's his last rep, and I've never seen him fail a rep ever in the weight room.
“He comes in every day and does his job without a word being said. I never hear him complain. I barely even see him sweat.”
Gardner said he speaks by phone or texts with Chubb to gear up for games. Bat emojis are common on the text thread.
Chubb attended Cedartown's football game on Sept. 2, Abrams said, and his affinity for the school prompted him to buy it an English bulldog, Hendrix said. The school's nickname is Bulldogs. The one gifted by the player who has finished runner-up for the NFL rushing title twice (1,259 yards last season and 1,494 yards in 2019) has been dubbed “Chubb.”
Abrams said Chubb often lifts with the football team in the morning and returns in the afternoon for track practice.
“He helps me coach track,” Worthington added, “but he also does all the speed work and works on flexibility.”
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In high school, Chubb was a state qualifier in the long jump, 100 and 200 meters and 400 relay, but Worthington piled shot put onto his plate when he was a junior and pulled him out of long jump when he was a senior.
One of Worthington's favorite stories about Chubb unfolded during a sectional track meet.
“The guy that was right in front of Nick threw just a really good shot that was the farthest throw of the day, and everybody started applauding him like the guy had already won,” Worthington recalled. “They were just sort of disregarding Nick. I remember looking at him and just being shocked. The next thing you know, he just goes out there and throws a bomb just because they sort of disregarded him. It just showed his competitiveness.”
Chubb's best throw in the shot put was 55 feet, 8 inches. He wound up winning a state title in the event as a senior.
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Abrams remembers another time Chubb's competitive spirit emerged. Two years ago, one of the former Cedartown standouts who went on to play college football posted a better time than Chubb while a group ran sprints at the school. The times were recorded with a new Bluetooth system, which tracked a chip worn by the runners.
“At the end, he asked what the best time was and what his time was,” Abrams said. “He puts [the chip] on and then blows the best time out of the water. He didn't have to do that.”
Tales like those give insight to Chubb's mindset. He shared a screenshot late last month on an Instagram story of an ESPN graphic listing him in “Tier 4” of fantasy football running backs.
“That did reach me a little bit just because every year, it's always something new,” he said. “But it is what it is. I can only control what I can control and go out there and do my best.”
It's time for Chubb to take control on the field, and he's confident the offseason grind he endured at Cedartown has steeled him again.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com.