Upon examination, you realize Colby is a gal, not a guy, which adds some intrigue.

She espouses a fresh training approach as innovative as her position with the team, combining track and football on the field.

“These boys have embraced me and been so respectful and loving; I’m so grateful for them. It was a slow transition; it wasn’t a hug or anything … hey, I’m here for 20 minutes of speed today, and it developed from there,” Colby said. “I’ve built trust in them through the results they see; in the weight room and on the field when they’re running.”

Co-captain Trayce McKinley, a defensive and offensive lineman, talked about Colby’s impact on the team after Layton clubbed Clearfield 47-0 on Aug. 28.

Photo supplied, Colby Fosmark

“Colby’s always making sure we stretch out, making sure we’re working on speed and agility, but she does it so well, where our body’s not being dead,” McKinley said.

Digging deeper into the football roster, you find that Colby has two sons on the team, which may explain the genesis of her interest in the program.

Blue Fosmark is a senior, rotating between defensive end and tackle on the varsity squad. Younger brother Liam Fosmark had four sacks in the Northridge sophomore game, but is undersized and may be moved to kick return and offense if he doesn’t get a growth spurt.

With a built-in bias towards track, where Colby is the sprints coach at Layton, both boys are also on the track team.

“I have my boys run track for football, because if you’re going to play football, you have to run track. They’re the best marriage in sports that there is,” Fosmark said. “Track will make you better at football. Football will make you better at track; they work so well together.”

Colby started working with a few football players on the side (son Blue Fosmark, Carter Hughes, JP Garlick, Cash Barnes and Teiyon Halbash), and last summer was hired to do speed training with the whole team a couple of times a week.

“(The players) started getting faster; they all run track for me too. It absolutely makes you better at both sports,” Coby said. “I really wanted to work with the football team; the coaches could see what I was doing. People took notice,” Colby said.

In January of this year, she was hired to be the strength and conditioning coach when her predecessor left for a business opportunity. She started full-time this summer.

“Coach (Trevor) Thomas and coach (Koy) Cannon have been amazing teammates and leaders. They let me do my own thing and I’m grateful for them,” Colby said. “We do football specifics; agility and mobility training to get them faster, so once the season hit, they’re ready to sprint.”

Speed combined with conditioning is unique in coaching circles today.

Photo supplied, Colby Fosmark

“What I bring is technique and mechanics that football coaches never really taught through football. Different sprinting mechanics and different drills,” Colby said. “I do the conditioning different than ever done before; we do a lot more speed than anyone else does.”

Colby Foxley prepped at Roy High where she was a cheerleader and powder puff football player as a junior.

No one could catch her, and she piled up a bunch of touchdowns before the track coach spirited her away to the fast lane.

She won state in the 100-meter dash as a senior and took second in the 100 hurdles, winning Female Athlete of the Year for Roy High.

A quick learner — her coach introduced her to hurdles only three weeks before the state meet.

Weber State signed her as a sprinter and hurdler, where she competed from 2001 to 2006 for coach Jim Blaisdell.

Colby won two Big Sky Conference championships in the indoor 55-meter hurdles and in 4×100 relay. Her relay squad held the WSU record for 22 years, until it was recently broken on April 12 of this year.

She was two-time All-Big Sky Conference and also won an academic award.

Colby married Brady Fosmark after graduating and earned bachelors and masters degrees in health administration.

That’s likely a familiar name; Brady was an All-American football player at Weber State and is in the WSU Athletics Hall of Fame as a defensive end, a position his boys have now adopted.

Colby dabbled in coaching during her 16-year career in health administration before retiring three years ago, when family life got “a little complicated” between Brady’s work and commuting.

She took a job as track coach at Shoreline Junior High before Layton High coach Carrie Fredin recruited her as the sprints coach two years ago.

Then came the twice-a-week football gig and the full-time job this past summer.

Summer was two-a-days from 7-9 a.m., followed by varsity practice from 3:30-5:30 p.m. and sophomores from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

In the morning, the boys would lift in the weight room and Colby worked with them in between different periods during practice.

“In addition to our core players, we’ll run kids who are still acclimating or are new or are injured, with no contact until they are ready to go back in,” Colby said. “Working with these athletes and my boys every day has been an absolute blessing in my life. I love watching them grow and develop into the incredible individuals that they are.”

Colby developed her workout routine throughout her health administration career and has fine-tuned it since retirement.

“Science and athletics has come so far since I graduated, so a lot of it is research and training I’ve put myself through and lived through, (through) coaches I follow online,” Colby said. “I’m a big proponent of being a multi-sport athlete because when you just train in one sport, that’s nonstop; that’s when the risk of injury goes up … (instead of) training different parts of the body that go together.

“I try to keep it very fun. We work hard, but we’re competitive and play games; we’ve got so much talent on this team,” Colby said.

Colby may be busier now than she ever was when she had a “real” job but loves every minute of it.

“I’m happy to go there for so many hours every day; happier than I’ve ever been,” Colby said. “(The boys) bring so much joy in my life every single day. I went to my happy place when I retired.”

Inside the Lines covers Northern Utah high school sports through the eyes of 51-year sportswriting veteran Bob Judson, who is a resident of Layton.