That Very Special Gift

During this Christmas season and reflecting back on Christmases past, I’ve been asked what was the best present that I ever got for Christmas. Without hesitation, I always say the weights/barbell set that was my Christmas gift when I was 13.  The reason I say that is because at 13, I was 4’ 8” and weighed 78 pounds.  I was in the eighth grade.  I was a pretty good athlete in basketball, baseball and football, the only sports that I had been introduced to and played, but knew that I wouldn’t be able to compete much longer without doing something to my scrawny body.  From the time I was eight, I was doing large numbers of sit-ups and pushups every single night, and I had developed muscular shoulders, biceps, triceps and stomach muscles, but still was mostly skinny and had no bulk.  I knew that the set of weights was more than simply an ordinary Christmas present.  The set of weights was my passageway into a different life.  I knew that I would lift the weights faithfully, and I saw the effect that weights had on other people.  I thought that the weights would help me develop my body better, my appearance would be better, I’d be bigger, stronger, a better athlete and more self-confident.  I knew that I had to have these weights because that would be the difference maker.

I woke up on Christmas Day, along with my eight brothers and sisters, and when we were allowed, we all ran down to the living room, tore open our presents, and the only present that I really wanted, a set of weights, was not there.  I was so incredibly disappointed, but I knew my parents could only do what they could do, and I tried my best to hide the sadness that I felt by not receiving the only real present I wanted, the one that would change my life.  I had opened the presents that I had, watched my brothers and sisters open their presents, and was ready to head back to my room to sulk when my dad pointed out to me that there was a box in the corner that I must not have seen.  I looked at this box that seemed to be about 3 feet long and a foot and a half wide, and thought what could be in there.  I went over to this ugly brown, somewhat flat box, was told to open it, that it was mine.  I did, and lo and behold, there were the weights.  They were not put together.  The weights themselves were flat.  The bar that the weights would go on fit easily into the box, as did the separate dumbbell weights that were there.  I guess I was expecting to see the weights fully put together sitting under the Christmas tree, barbells, bar, weights and all.  I simply had not pictured the weights being in a long, flat, brown box.

My sadness instantly turned to elation, and I remember shouting with joy that I got my weights.  The absolute best Christmas present I ever got.  And the weights did as I thought they would do, somewhat changed the direction of my life.  I lifted those weights every other day from the time I was 13 until 20.  At age 15, I took those weights, along with other weights that I added to them, to the local high school I attended where some of my other classmates had also brought in some weights.  The kids on both the football and basketball teams then began lifting weights every other day as a group.  It was 1961 when we began the weight program.  A weight program was simply unheard of.  Perhaps it was one of the only weight programs in the State of West Virginia at that time.  We were not told that we had to lift weights by the coaches.  Certainly, the coaches and our parents questioned whether the weights would really be of any benefit inasmuch as they were still of the belief that climbing ropes, doing pushups, sit-ups and chin-ups were the way to go.  By the time I graduated from high school, there were 30-40 boys lifting weights every other day in our Charleston Catholic weight room.

The weights must have paid off inasmuch as for a three-year span, that group of boys who started lifting weights would win one state championship in 1962, would play for another one in 1963, and still another one in 1964.  That group of young boys ended up winning over 30 straight regular season football games at Charleston Catholic.  From that group, there were two Kennedy award winners, symbolic of the outstanding football player in the State of West Virginia, and a number of players were awarded scholarships to Division I schools, including Joe White, the Kennedy award winner for 1962 to the University of North Carolina; Tommy Groom, captain and starting halfback to Virginia Tech; Tom Swords to Virginia Tech; Frank Carnetti, the Kennedy award winner in 1964 to Notre Dame, along with Tim Monte, our center, both started on Notre Dame’s championship football team; Terry Smoot, who at one time was the all-time leading rusher at Virginia Tech and captain of their football team; Steve Davitti and Johnny Rectonwall who likewise played at Virginia Tech; and David Boyle at Dartmouth.  Apparently, that little school with enrollment of about 400 students in grades 9-12 produced during that three year span more Division I football players than any other school in the history of the State of West Virginia.  I likewise was recruited by a few Division I schools, but was unable to further my football career.

And it could be said that it all started with those weights that were given as a present to me that Christmas when I was 13.