My Calling in Life

I have been asked this question so many times... "what got me into coaching and more importantly becoming a Strength and Conditioning Coach?  Ever since I was about 15 years old I have known and I let everyone know that being a Strength Coach was my #1 Goal in life.  What you have to understand is that this was back in the mid 70's and there sure as hell weren't many strength and conditioning coaches out there and in fact most sport coaches frowned on lifting weights since you know it made you 'muscle bound' whatever in the hell that means!!!  Of course you tell your teachers, coaches or even your buddies this and I can guarantee that you will be mocked and made fun of I even had a teacher tell me that with dreams (not goal a dream) like this I would amount to nothing in life and trust me it sure as hell wasn't any better at home!! 

Where did I get such a crazy notion (that's what my teachers, friends and family called it) that one could be a Strength Coach and make an athlete better by lifting weights.  Strength and Health magazine was the 'shit' back then and it covered the sport of weightlifting (notice I didn't say Olympic weightlifting), powerlifting and a little bit of bodybuilding.  One day I got a copy and there it was 'my motivation' in the terms of a big old dude standing in the doorway of the weight room at St. Bodaventure University in New York.  I can still see the picture of him standing there all 70's Big and the article that went with pictures of that weight room created in a boiler room. The article talked about how he had coached with the Buffalo Bills in the AFL and worked as a lifeguard at Jones Beach in New York and how he had brought the idea of training with weights to improve athletes performance to St. Bonaventure where he was also the Cross Country Coach.  WHAT?? Did you say a guy that likes to run long distances though the woods also advocates strength training for athletes!! NO WAY that doesn't work I'm gonna have to take your Strength Coach's card away from you!!!  Well now there are a few people out there promoting this very thing and promoting it like it's something new and just discovered by them sorry boys that shit was thought of long before you came on the scene!!! 

Anyways,  I promptly tore the pages out and put them the wall in my bedroom right by my Farrah Fawcett Majors poster that every boy in America had back then!!!  Later, as my life took me from Michigan all over the world and finally dropped me down in South Texas and I am telling this story to the Head of the Kinesiology at The University of Texas at San Antonio as I am finally beginning to work towards my degree.  He listens to my story as he roots though his desk and then produces the very Strength and Health magazine I had been talking about and turns to the page and asks me if this was the article?  Hell YES it is and then I look...the man I am standing in front of the Head of the Kinesiology Department and now my Advisor is Dr. George Colfer...that Strength/Cross Country Coach in the magazine that started this wonderful journey of mine is George Colfer one in the same. 

So when people ask me 'why I do what it is I do' I simply smile at them and tell them that this is simply 

MY Calling in Life and it is what I was destined to do.  

Play Hard...Train Harder...NO EXCUSES