Why I Love Weightlifting Part 2: Fate

After winning my first AAU Junior Olympics, I was hooked on weightlifting and ready to go all in. Over the next year, I played football and continued to train twice a week—once during the week and once on weekends, usually the day after games. That winter, I was ready to give up basketball and make weightlifting my year-round sport. I ended up playing one last basketball season, but I was really just counting down the days until I could start training full time.

When that time finally came, I threw myself into it. We traveled to a meet in York, PA—considered the Mecca of the strength world for old-timers like myself. There, I got to compete in a purpose-built stadium designed for weightlifting and powerlifting. It was an unforgettable experience, especially for someone new to the sport—and especially while running a 105-degree "weightlifting fever."

Next, I competed in my first and only USAW School-Age (now Youth) Nationals in St. Louis, MO; spent a week training in Houston; and capped off the summer by earning a silver medal at my second AAU Junior Olympics in Knoxville, TN. That spring and summer, my life revolved around weightlifting—and I loved it. I got to travel to four different cities in four months, and I quickly fell in love with the rhythm of training, competing, and being on the road. It was all new to me, and it was exciting that this lifestyle was just part of the sport.

Entering the fall of my junior year of high school, I felt like I was finally making real progress. But fate had other plans. On an otherwise unremarkable October day, my path changed.

It was Week 8 of the football season. A few of us were walking to the practice field, talking about the upcoming end of the season and what we’d do once it was over. We started practice with a tackling circuit to work on fundamentals. When I got to the angle tackling station, I went in for a tackle—and BAM. I hit the ball carrier, then hit the ground. Pain shot through my neck and shoulder. As I lay on the ground, I thought I might be paralyzed—my right arm could barely move, except for a slight twitch of my fingertips.

The diagnosis wasn’t quite as dramatic, but it was just as devastating: a dislocated right shoulder.

After several appointments, I was told I had torn my labrum and would need surgery. Best-case scenario? A six-month recovery. To say I was crushed would be an understatement. I had surgery in November and spent most of my recovery watching weightlifting videos, reading everything I could, and thinking constantly about the sport. Since I couldn’t train, I focused on learning—doing everything I could to prepare for the day I could get back to it.

That helped for a while, but as winter dragged on, I grew restless—especially with my arm still stuck in a sling. Around this time, my dad, who was the football strength coach at my high school, had started training a few students outside of football to compete in weightlifting. One day in the weight room, he asked me to help him out. He was busy training the rest of the group and needed someone to teach a new lifter’s younger brother how to lift.

That’s when I met Kody—the first person I ever taught to lift. I was 16, and he was 8. I taught him how to snatch with my right arm still in a sling and a wooden dowel in my left hand.

That was my first real taste of coaching—and I loved it. Watching someone learn and improve, seeing them get good at a skill I had taught them, was fun to watch. I started helping plan training for the other lifters, even as I continued my own rehab and limited training.

Eventually, after many more hard lessons and the realization that my shoulder would never truly hold together, I made the transition to coaching full time around 2006.

Looking back, the experiences I’ve had as a coach far outweigh anything I could’ve accomplished as an athlete. If I had never gotten injured, I would have kept training, banging my head against the wall, and maybe—maybe—worked up to a 125/155 as a 94kg lifter. I never would have medaled nationally, let alone made a name for myself in the sport.

But as a coach? I've helped athletes win national medals, compete on World and Pan-Am teams, attend national team camps, and I've taught the snatch and clean & jerk to hundreds of athletes—many of whom weren’t even weightlifters.

I wanted to become a great lifter. Fate intervened—and had a much better plan in mind.