Army Powerlifting returned home from Orlando Fl. and the Colligiate Nationals with a great 3rd place finish. This event was the largest college lifting event on record and the stage was set for 3 days of hard competion. With over 50 schools in attendence each lifter had thier hands full. The opening attempts were weights that would have won thier class a few short years ago. We knew this was going to be a fight. In addition our roster size was less then half of the size of the other top schools. We were grossly undermaned.
Day one started out with 2 lifters in the123lb class. Freshman Ceon Harris and Armys only senior Dustin(gansta) Pope Dustin a stallworth athlete for the team was a 3 time All-American coming in to the competion and was hoping to make it 4 in a row.
After a great day Both were All-Americans Ceon with a 5th place Dustin was strong enough to take third giving Army valuable team points. Up next was team captain Tom (TAD) DeAvaila and Mike (Mac) McKenna at 132lbs. Mac is another big time lifter and gave Army a fourth place finish another All-American and more team points. All-in-all a very good day for Army.
Day 2 was adifferent story. Tyler (smiley) Wright struggled and fell short at 181lbs in a wt.class with almost 50 lifters. leaving Army again with no points. Joe(wild thing) Dang gave everything but things didn't go his way as he was just short of points as well. The one bright spot for day 2 was (iceman) Credle proving he is gonna be a stud at 181 going a great 10-4-10 after a misload allowing him one extra lift. No fear no failure for the Iceman.
Day 3 started out strong with one of Army's best Nick (just squat) LaPlante going for gold at 220.
The competion was strong and coming down to the last lift there were 4 lifters fighting for the top 3 spots.LaPlante had to have a huge 635 pound deadlift to secure 2nd place. Nick came close but fell just short and landed in third. Still good for team points and another All-American.
Up next the 242 pound lifters and Don (burley) Byerly. Don needed to lift big and help us out and gat team points. He did just that securing 6th place and some team points. The 275lb pound class meant it was time for Drew(the lumberjack ) Chapman. Chap needed to stay ahead of some of our competitors to keep them from getting valuable points as we were closing in on days end. Penn St., A&M , Northeastern and the Longhorns were all fighting for third. Chap came up big and did his job lifting defensivly and staying ahead of the competion.
33 hours of competition and everyone completly exhausted. It was down to the superheavyweights. 5 teams still looking at third as LSU and La Tech had locked up1&2 with LSU in first. The supers started out strong and Army's Nate (big held) Held was right there in the mix. After finishing the squats and bench Held was middle of the pack. Not a great spot with some big men deadlifting huge numbers. But,we knew Big Held was the king of the deadlifts pulling over 700lbs in the Navy meet 4 months prior. On Helds 2nd attempt we called 685 an easy lift for him which would be good enough
for him to lock up 3rd place. Unbelieveably Held missed the attempt with a hitch at the top. This meant it had to be taken on his third and final lift of the meet. The room was electric as his last attempt was the second to last lift of the day. If he gets it we are in third if he misses we are 6th. With the crowd and the announcer going crazy.
I was in the warmup room with Big Held trying to stay calm. I simply told him our team was on his huge shoulders and if there was one man with one lift I had to pick to have it all riding on. This would be it. With the crowd going nuts and his family and teammates screaming on the top of their lungs Big Held made it look like he was picking up a bag of groceries. He did it! We did it! Third place. With all the things this year held for us it might as well been 1st place. We were all very happy.
We had been through so much adversity this year and knew if we had any chance at anything all of us would have to do our job lifting record lifts without error. I have been to many meets but this was something else. I have never seen it sio close all the way to the end. Athletes and coaches giving their all. This 3rd place finish yeilded 6 All-Americans 35 percent of our squad. A larger percentage then any other school in the nation. This finish also gives Army its 5th top 3 finish in the last 7 years also more then any other college in the nation. Army has proven they are one of the top teams in the sport today!
I would like to say thank you and good-bye to my friend and assistant coach Mjr. Damon Wells.
You have done a great job and will be sorley missed. You are a great coach and lifter as well as a fine officer. I am gonna miss ya buddy.
