I wasn’t always interested in personal fitness, though from an early age I was incredibly active. I grew up on a farm which made running, jumping, lifting, etc a daily necessity to work as well as play. However, at age 15 when I entered high school two things became very apparent to me. Number one: I weighed 85 pounds soaking wet and there was no way I could really be successful at any sport weighing so little. Number two: there was no way any high school girl was going to be remotely attracted to a boy of my stature. (They were all bigger than me!) It was at this point in my life that I found the weight room to be a place of great satisfaction, determination, and sometimes embarrassment. After a year in the weight room, I had grown to a whopping 105 pounds and felt ready to play football and continue lifting. Needless to say, football was never my strongpoint, however weightlifting fast became a passion. Encouraged and sometimes physically pushed by my high school weightlifting coach, Stan Luttrell, I entered my first weightlifting competition. From the moment that I found myself on the platform in front of spectators solely focused on my personal success or failure, I was hooked!

Though I was mediocre at every sport I played (mainly because of my weight which peaked at 135 pounds my senior year) I quickly became successful at olympic weightlifting, competing in my first National Championship my freshman year at Young Harris College. I would continue in that success competing in multiple American Open Championships and competitions winning multiple local meets and three Georgia Games championships. As college progressed and my weightlifting career continued, I also grew personally. I attribute the required characteristics of determination, maturity, and dedication honed in weightlifting to be major contributing factors to personal growth. Everybody goes through a time where they move from child to adult and sometimes it is that transition that determines the person they will become. During my transition in college, I began to realize that though weightlifting, among other things, was important it was not the most important.

During the year between my transfer from Young Harris College to the University of Georgia I felt called into youth ministry and service to Jesus Christ. After transferring to UGA, I took a job as a youth pastor and more than ever found myself in great need of those traits of dedication, determination, and maturity. I continue today to serve in that aspect as a youth pastor but another change came to my life in my transfer to UGA. Upon transferring to Athens I was made aware of a CrossFit gym in the area. My coach at the time said they would have platforms and bumper plates that I could use to continue my lifting, so naturally I decided to check them out. What I saw in CrossFit Athens would change my idea of fitness and forever change how I viewed great gyms. Pull-up bars, bumper plates, kettle bells, olympic rings, and a lone, unplugged, dusty treadmill in the corner is what I saw the day I walked in. What I also saw were men and women of all ages and all fitness levels sweating, breathing hard, sometimes puking all in the name of functional fitness. I saw pull-ups that mimicked a snatch movement and a thruster that would instantly translate into improved clean and jerk movement.

Needless to say, I saw the complement that CrossFit would be to my olympic lifting and I was immediately interested. Once I survived my first WOD, I was able to continue my lifting, help coach the lifts, and throw in some CrossFit along the way. I love doing the CrossFit WODs and I love seeing people of all fitness levels challenge themselves and others in pursuit of their own fitness goals. I love seeing people who have never pushed themselves physically or mentally push themselves to new levels and achieve record feats. That’s why I love CrossFit, because it takes ordinary people and helps them to do extraordinary things under their own power and allows them and others to see the transformation right in front of their eyes. I love olympic lifting, I love CrossFit, I love Jesus, and recently my girlfriend, Megan Ivey, gave me the opportunity to love her for the rest of my life when she said yes to my proposal. She joins the many loves of my life but is the foundation and support for all that I do and will top my priority list until the day I die.

3. . . 2. . . 1. . . GO!