A weighty matter

Mike Sciacca, Independent

It was nearly 27 summers ago when a group of student-athletes, parents

and coaches from Edison High banned together and went to work on building

an outdoor weight room on the school’s campus.

It became known as the football weight room where the toil and sweat

from countless bouts of pushing iron, translated into success on the

playing field as the Edison football program grew into one of the most

successful in Southern California.

It still remains one of the better-known programs in the Southland but

that weight room is gone, its skeleton now a graveyard for a pile of

concrete rubble.

The initial endeavor by that hard-working group in the summer of 1975

has become the groundwork for something greater: in its place will spring

a new, state-of-the-art athletic weight training facility.

Ground breaking for the projected 4,500-square-foot facility will be

January 2003, said Edison athletic director Bruce Belcher.

The estimated cost of the project is around $350,000.

On March 12 the trustees of the Huntington Beach Union High School

District voted to enter into an agreement with Hastings Partners, Inc.,

for architectural services for construction of the facility.

“It should be a really great facility once the project is completed.

This will benefit our students and community tremendously,” Belcher said.

Time made the outdoor lifting facility obsolete, Belcher said. With

today’s fitness conscience youth spending more time in the gym, the new

facility will be available to all students on campus, whether they are

involved in sports or not, and it will offer more amenities, he said.

A 2,000-square foot weight training room has been available on campus.

It is home to free weights and various weight machines as well as a few

bikes. It’s used by members of the student body and a variety of athletic

teams.

“On a typical day you can have 100 student-athletes using this weight

room, and that fills the room to capacity,” Belcher said. “We refurbished

the indoor weight room about five years ago and it is a great facility

but it’s just not big enough.”

The proposed athletic weight training facility will be equipped with

not only free weights, weight machines and bikes, but also air

conditioning, heating, drinking fountains, a security system, sound

system and coaches office.

Belcher said he hopes to use the computer to store personalized

student weight lifting programs.

Much like the 1975 outdoor weight room, funding for the new project

has come through donations from within the Charger community.

“This project has been in the making for quite a few years,” Belcher

said.

The Charger football program will not be able to use the weight room

until the spring of 2003, when the new athletic training facility figures

to open its door.

“This will be an awesome facility for all of our athletic teams,”

coach Dave White said. “I think our students deserve the best and this

weight training facility will provide them with just that.”

* MIKE SCIACCA is the education and sports reporter. He can be reached

at (714) 965-7171 or by e-mail at michael.sciacca@latimes.com.