BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. – Pro athletes are known to frequent Southwest Florida to train during their off-seasons but Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Gardner Minshew took his commitment to a whole new level.
Bonita Springs trainer Anthony Tumbarello, owner of Coach Tumbarello Performance, has worked with hundreds if not thousands of athletes in his 11 years as a trainer.
Coach Tumbarello has worked with Minshew since he entered the league and has pushed him each off-season. Tumbarello has also watched him mature into one of the hardest workers he’s ever seen in the gym.
That being said what Minshew suggested he would do this off-season was one of a kind.
“Not many trainers can say that their professional athlete pulled up to the back of their gym and said I am going to eat, sleep, you know work out here 24/7,” Coach Tumbarello said.
Anthony was approached by Gardner with his idea to live in a van outside the gym back in February but at the time he thought it was just an idea.
“You don’t know until someone actually rolls up. But once I figured out that he was touring the country with it and then he was going to bring it down here I was like okay this is going to be real,” Coach Tumbarello said.
It was about as real as it could get for Anthony. Gardner rolled up to CTP back at the end of February with a converted prison bus and stayed until recently leaving for the start of Eagles training camp.
While in Southwest Florida, Gardner did everything he possibly could with CTP as a home base.
“You know he used our water supply for showering, you know we had our bathroom in here so he could use the bathroom all the time, we gave him a key to the gym so he was coming and going as he pleased. You know he turned this into his home,” Coach Tumbarello said.
For his actual home away from home, Anthony suggests to not judge this book by its cover.
“The outside can be deceiving but once you see the inside of it you’re like oh this is Gardner Minshew,” Coach Tumbarello said.
The converted bus had a stove, a bed, a couch, a lava lamp, wood paneling, album cover art and anything else you think a 1970s themed bus would have on the inside.
But considering Minshew is worth millions of dollars and could stay anywhere in Bonita Springs that he wanted to, the obvious question that came to everyone’s mind is why? But if you take one look around the CTP facility the answer is all around you, they grind different.
“It wasn’t like this was some thing that was just a publicity stunt or anything like that. His focus and his main focus is winning a Super Bowl and doing everything that he can to possibly do that,” Coach Tumbarello said.
It’s that different grind that Gardner showed off that got Anthony on board with this unique idea from the get go.
“For me that is why I opened this place. I opened this gym to have guys like that and the commitment to excellence, the commitment to getting better you know that is what CTP is all about and it just kind of embodies the culture that we have here,” Coach Tumbarello said.
Gardner is currently selling the bus on his Instagram page after driving it up to Philadelphia for training camp but don’t worry bus 2.0 is loading for next off-season.
“There will be a different version of the van, it will be the new van. This was the bus before the bus. That is all I’m going to say about all that but something will definitely be parked back there,” Coach Tumbarello said.
Only Gardner knows what the upgraded bus will look like behind CTP performance come February 2023.
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