Westcott was named after a man.
The new weight room was put together by Promaxima Manufacturing out of Houston, Texas, with the help of two employees. Nathan Aker lifts as he spots a person.
An effort to get Sweet Home High School students back into the flow of normal life has resulted in a new weight room.
The school was able to use a High School Academic Support Grant to upgrade its dilapidated, undersized workout room in an effort to get students involved in physical exercise.
An increased emphasis by football coaches on weight training made school officials realize that there wasn’t really enough equipment in the existing facility to meet the needs, according to Athletic Director Dan Tow.
Tow said that there were a lot of kids standing around. “If we could get more rack, more weights in there, we could do a better job of getting kids in shape and productivity.”
Tow and other school officials started looking for funding for weight equipment because it is not cheap.
Tow zeroed in on COVID funding being offered to schools to get kids back on track.
Tow said that the director of the career center at the high school was able to apply for a grant.
He said that “Kristin is an expert in grants, jumping through those hoops”. Adams and Strong were able to take advantage of some of the grants.
Adams said the funding was a result of out-of-the-box thinking. The grant was geared toward credit recovery, but administrators decided not to pursue a normal summer school program that would require more effort from tired teachers.
She said that 20% of students in elective classes failed during the 2020-21 school year.
That is equivalent to 600 classes.
In the summer of 2021, the district offered a summer school at Sweet Home Junior High and a Summer Reconnect Program which gave students the opportunity to take “career exploration classes” such as welding, design, or marine biology.
The district decided to add a week-long summer physical fitness camp that would put kids in the new weight room instead of having credit-recovery core classes in June, Adams said.
“Teachers were tired at the time,” Adams said. We weren’t going to ask teachers to give up any more time in the summer.
Tow and Adams said that the previous weight room couldn’t handle the demand for high school sports.
Adams said his goal was to provide something the children could be proud of. Weight training is our top physical fitness class. We used to be limited on numbers because we didn’t have enough equipment. The coaches had been asking to do something with it. We got a grant. I wondered, “Why not?” Help out the athletic department, we can expand class offerings to kids.
Tow said that the new weight room features 15 squat racks and three full sets of dumbbells, as well as a new floor that will increase the safety factor.
Ryan Adams described the set-up as a bunch of pieces thrown together to make it work.
He said a lot of kids didn’t want to lift weights last year. Some people wanted to lift at Steelhead because of the new stuff.
The high school facility has not been upgraded since 2003 and some components looked student-made.
The new weight room layout will accommodate his entire program of 60 players, according to Adams.
He said everything is very nice. It’s easy to get around there.
This will allow us to get more kids in that small room and get adequate exercise.
He said that he and assistant coach Cy Maughmer will continue a morning lifting program after the football season.
A lot of kids are excited about working out. It has created a lot of excitement among non-athletes. Kids who weren’t athletes showed up in the morning to work out during the non-season workouts. There were at least six or seven girls last year. I expect that to go up this year.