The Administration Didn't Want to Build a Weight Room. I Built One Anyway.
A picture story.
*This post is a story told mostly through pictures. Substack has kindly informed me that the post is to large to send to most emails. I thought about taking out the photos, but I couldn’t do it. I’m excited to share this story of the weight room and I want you to see the evolution that’s occurred over the past 8 years. When the newsletter prompts you with the link, “Click to read more” it’ll simply direct you to the web. I hope you do so. Enjoy!
I still remember the interview that won me the job.
Well, I say “won,” but when I think about it, I was probably the only person who interviewed. What P.E. teacher wants to work in a place with no windows and no fields?
Idiots. That’s who.
In any case, I remember hitting it off with my principal. He seemed satisfied with the answers I gave him about pedagogy and classroom management, and by the end of the interview we had spiraled off into a conversation about UCONN basketball. To close the interview he asked if there was anything I would like say. I remember saying,
“Yes, actually. I really want to build a strength and conditioning after school program.”
“Like getting kids to lift weights?”
“Well, yeah. Kinda. I want to create a program where kids can become better athletes. Teach them correct movement patterns. Prepare them to squat, deadlift, press, and sprint with proper mechanics.”
His eyes widened with excitement, “You know what, I think you’ll love this. We have a weight room that I think you’ll really enjoy using.”
“Can you show me?”
“Absolutely.”
Thinking back I have to laugh, I remember expecting to find an old dusty weight room with dozens of single use machines taking up space where I knew I would want to set up power racks. I crossed my fingers hoping for some rusty barbells and decaying 45 pound plates.
I remember the principal showing me the door to the weight room next to the gym, and holding my breath wondering what I would see. When he opened the door, I exhaled and blinked multiple times. When the man said they had a weight room what he meant was, the school had a room where they put the weights.
The room was an equipment closet.
It held a few yoga balls, some mats, a couple of dumbells up to 25 pounds, and two benches. That was it. The rest of closet was filled with deflated basketballs and broken plastic soccer goals.
“Not bad huh?”
“Huh?” I hadn’t yet registered that the principal had spoken.
“Not bad. Im sure you’ll find a way to use those dumbbells.”
“Oh. Uhhhh. Yeah. Pretty good…”
We shook hands and I walked out of the school crestfallen.
I had been a Crossfit trainer for the past 6 years of my life at that point. A large part of why I wanted to become a physical educator was because I wanted to teach kids how to take control of their own fitness. I firmly believed (and I still do) that every kid should know how to navigate a gym and have basic knowledge on how to control their health.
I knew I wouldn’t take the job. I had to find a place where I could follow my dream.
Fast forward to the end of August. I have no other job options, and I’m drowning in college debt.
I take the job.
The Hallway
Like most like most inner city public high schools, my school was strapped for cash. Even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t like there was a pile of money just waiting for the rookie P.E. teacher. Any extra funding requests would go to the veterans, people who had proved they could handle the stress of teaching in Harlem. If you’re a principal there’s no point in letting rookie teachers spend precious dollars in your budget for programs that may not last longer than a year.
I wasn’t exactly swimming in cash either. I was a first year teacher living in my parents house, dealing with a monthly $365 metro north train ticket, and trying to find a way to pay off a masters degree. I ground my teeth knowing some finance bro was enjoying a starting salary that would take me 8 years to get to, yet our degrees costed the same amount.
Still. When you don’t have much money, you get creative.
I refused to accept that I wouldn’t be able to build a strength and conditioning program. My regular P.E. classes were nightmares born from teacher satan’s imagination. Students ignored everything I said, broke the locks on my equipment closets (including the “weight room”), and played basketball during the handball unit while I screamed my head off.
I needed to make this program work for my own sanity. I needed to find a way to win.
Thankfully, I had my younger idiot self to think. Before I got the teacher job I had been dumpster diving and gathering equipment from facebook marketplace for years to build my dream garage gym. I don’t know why the fuck I thought I’d ever afford a house with a garage on a Crossfit trainer’s salary. You’d have to ask my 23 year old self the thought process there, but in any case, I already owned two stand alone squat racks, two barbells, and about 500lbs worth of plates. All of it was sitting in my father’s barn.
(Two barbells and two squat racks because I had dreams of working out with my girlfriend in my make-believe garage gym. She’s an ex now. Smart gal.)
I decided to take all the equipment, borrow my dad’s beat up VW bus, and transport it to the school’s “weight room.” I had just enough space to fit the squat racks into the closet without taking them apart, and the racks were just light enough that I could pick them up and set them up in the gym after school.
Of course, basketball and volleyball practice took over the gym after school, so originally, I wasn’t allowed to set up there either.
Fuck them and fuck everything. I was still going to make this work.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the first version of the Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce’s strength and conditioning facility.
(yes, that really is the name of the school I work at.)
I eventually convinced the administration that the gym would be a safe space for us to set-up during basketball practice so long as we made a shield with the bleachers. I think the administration mostly didn’t give a shit - they were just surprised I had found a way to attract kids into the program.
For the next four years the program operated three days a week and looked like this.
I couldn’t be prouder of the work those kids put in after school. They showed up, listened to directions, followed diet suggestions, and started improving their sleep. Most kids squatted over their body weight, and many of them squatted 225 and beyond. They established some of the original lifting records for the school that have since been broken.
The kids who showed up to work their asses off in that hot sweaty gym built the foundation of my program. I was beginning to create what I had always dreamed of - a place where kids came to become bad motherfuckers.
Still, I wan’t satisfied. Volleyballs would fly over the bleachers and pelt my lifters while they were benching. It wasn’t safe. Screaming directions over the sound of bouncing basketballs was getting old. My kids deserved their own space.
We needed to find a home.
The Cage
Here’s the issue with working in a concrete block with no windows shared by three separate schools. Yes, you read that correctly. Three separate schools with their own administrations occupy the building I teach in.
There’s no space. We’re piled on top of each other like sardines in a can. The two elementary charter schools take up all of the classrooms we don’t occupy, and there is a constant battle between the schools to find space for after school programs.
We couldn’t steal a classroom, and every possible place was occupied by other programs. Even the hallways were dicey when teachers dismissed the elementary kids from school. Nothing like dropping a deadlift bar on a five year old’s foot.
My second year working at the school I found a place to setup a weight room. There was a section of the boys locker room blocked by a metal wire cage. Inside of it from floor to ceiling were unused chairs, desks, and junk including broken pianos. It was the space the janitors would use to place anything that no one was using any more.
It was perfect.
The space was big enough for 4 squat racks against one wall, and there was enough floor space for deadlifting and plyometrics. I was imagining all the ways I could use the space. All I needed to do was take a couple of days after school with the weightlifters and move the junk into the dumpsters outside.
God I was naive.
Like an idiot, I asked my principal for permission, and I ran straight into the brick wall of bureaucracy. Turns out I wasn’t allowed to use the kids for “manual labor.” Which I couldn’t help but find hilarious as the whole point of the club was picking heavy shit up and putting it down.
Then I asked if I could do it. I’ll leave the kids out of it and just get to work on my own for an hour or two each day. Turns out I wasn’t allowed to throw out school supplies without express permission from the city.
Then I asked if could just move all the shit to the abandoned girls locker room upstairs - kids only used it for smoking weed. I was told because there was no cage to block part of the locker room from the junk, the unused chairs and desks could pose a danger to the students who might use the front part of the locker room. I was enraged. These kids are allowed to take the New York City subway by themselves in order to get to school - we even provide them with train tickets, but a pile of desks and chairs pose a significant threat? For fucks sake, a hobo was more likely to attack them.
I should have just thrown all the shit out first and just asked for forgiveness.
It took me 4 years of emails, conversations with the principal, repeatedly assuring the janitorial staff that it wouldn’t be their responsibility, leaning on the athletic director, and a million other tiny nudges before I finally got permission to clear out the space.
But we did it. After 5 years in the gymnasium, the weightlifting crew finally had a home in the absence of a pile of junk.
Here’s what it looked like.
The White Dude with the Money and the Politician
In my 6th year of teaching some white dude with a lot of money and a politician by the name of Councilman Gibbs started poking around school. I learned that our principal was courting the politician in an attempt to raise one hundred thousand dollars to help fund the school. The politician in turn was courting the white dude to contribute money to his district.
The entire building desperately needed it. Our heating and cooling system didn’t work, the library was a catastrophe of ruined books, our school computers dated back to the time of the original Ipod. We learned that the white dude with the money was checking out several schools so he could evaluate who had the greatest need. Councilman Gibbs knew our principal, and my principal, Mr. Viz, was doing everything he could to play the saddest violin possible when showing the man our school.
Suddenly the story of the weightlifting club became incredibly important. By this time I had divorced myself from the idea that I would ever receive any real money from the school in order to build my program. I had began looking into what a serious go-fund me campaign looked like, and I had began to plan with the rich moms at my local Crossfit gym who knew more than I would ever know when it came to school fundraising. But Viz asked if I could share the club’s history with the politician and the white dude with the money, and when your boss asks for your help, you help.
The white dude and councilman Gibbs walked into the fluorescent lit cage with the shitty blue foam floor and 12 rubber mats and I began selling.
“Hey, I’m Mr. Schuerch, I’m the P.E. teacher, the health teacher, and the after school strength and conditioning coach.” I flashed them a smile and they both shook my hand. I continued, “So you’re in my favorite room in the whole building.” They saw the shitty room behind a cage with a smattering of weights with a couple of barbells and squat racks surrounded by green lockers and looked a little confused.
I smiled, “It’s my favorite because this is where I train kids. If you take a look at that white board there,” I directed their attention to a white board with a bunch of kids names and numbers on it, “you’ll see where the current trainees are in their squat, deadlift, and bench press. We run a linear progression where they add a little bit more weight each time they lift, and over the course of the year they get quite strong. It’s in credibly rewarding when kids see what consistency over time can bring them.”
I point at Shercy’s awesome graffitied words, “Consistency is King.”
They continue to nod politely, but I can tell they don’t really get how important this all is. So much for trying to get them to see the kids in this room. Time to try something they might understand.
I say, “So here’s the deal, I love this program because I’ve poured my soul into it, but It’s come at a cost. I made it with my own teacher dollars. All of the squat racks, barbells, and plates you see all came out of my own paycheck. That floor you’re standing on is 900 dollars - also from my own paycheck, and I drove it here in my father’s van. I’ve built this program without any help from the schools budget - and that’s not because my principal isn’t interested in helping,” I nod to Viz, “but it’s because we just don’t have any funds for after school activities. I plan on continuing to grow this program any way I can, but any financial help you guys can offer would be most appreciated.”
The white dude’s eyes opened wide, and he said amazing. Councilman Gibbs shook my hand again and told me what a great job I was doing. When they left I winked at Viz because I knew I had them in my pocket.
I didn’t really expect any funds to come my way, but I had fun pitching a story that might help out the school in the long run.
Long story short, we won the grant.
Even better, for the first time ever I received funding from the school to improve the weight room. Viz gave me ten thousand dollars to spend however I pleased. I never had more fun in my life internet shopping.
The following pictures show the arrival of a ton of new equipment, and how I used the entire student body to build it together. Viz had offered to hire help to build it, but I wanted the kids to be part of creating something important at the school.
I wanted them to be able to say they built the weight room.
The Future
To be clear. The weight room is not done. It will never be done. There is no “done.” I always have new ideas for where I want to take it. We need a cardio room. I’d like to replace my facebook marketplace racks with true power racks. I’d like to have some machines students can use for bodybuilding purposes. We need to rip out the green lockers so we have more space. The program keeps growing!
There was a great moment this year where one of my weight lifters was walking around looking for more plates on trap bar deadlift day. He yelled out, “Schuerch! We need more plates, everyone is getting too strong.” He went on to gesture at all the trap bars with over 300 pounds on them.
The kid is right. I’m going to have to purchase more plates.
I started this program in a hallway with two squat racks and a couple of weights. Now I have power racks, dumbbells up to 100 pounds, rubber flooring, echo bikes, and most importantly, the trust of my administration. By the end of this year I’ll have convinced them to purchase the schools first functional trainer. The weightlifting program is bigger than the basketball team.
I can tell you I intend to continue to build the program and produce as many badass motherfuckers as possible.
8 years in.
Multiple decades to go.
All I can say, amazing! Not only are you teaching them about lifting weights, you're teaching them discipline, perseverance, cooperation, good habits both physically and mentally, and yes, even disappointment. The thing is, they'll have the tools to work through that disappointment, to work harder, smarter, and it'll carry over to all parts of their lives.
Such a joy to read. Not just about the kids but your own perseverance and your spirit of mission and dedication. Congrats!