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Chapter 1: Universal Gym




      "Did you do anything in high school?" queries Coach Jim Zerilla from behind an old wooden desk scattered with papers and books in the baseball office of the University of Louisville field house.

"We played in the state final," I begin, hoping team accomplishments might trump personal ones like it would have for my coaches at Bound Brook High School back in New Jersey.



     I was relieved he didn't ask why I was leaving a disheartening freshmen football camp. The first day consisted of the passing out of red shorts and white tank top t's followed by the showing off of some muscle. I'd trained all summer on my high school's Universal Gym and was confident with a bench press maximum of three-hundred and twenty pounds, not bad for a seventeen-year-old weighing in at one-sixty-five fully clothed. 

"We'll start you at two-eighty and work up to your max," proclaimed the graduate assistant in charge of weight training. 

     I dropped back on the padded bench, gripped the knurling, and lifted the bar off the rack. It wobbled a little since I'd not trained with free weights, but I soon steadied it, took a deep breath, and lowered the bar to my chest. Then I planted my feet, arched the back, puffed out the cheeks, and heaved with all I had. It didn't budge.

"Spotters on three, one-two-three," chuckled the coach as two upperclassmen grabbed the ends of the bar and dead-lifted it back onto the rack. "Better luck next time!"

     Next up was a tall, well-muscled guy who whispered "four-twenty" when asked his previous max. The other freshmen gasped when he pumped ten quick reps on the barbell loaded with three-hundred and fifty pounds of black plates. I hung at the back of the group and cursed god-damned weight-lifting machines.



     "That team stuff is all well and good," Coach Zerilla scoffs, spurting a stream of dark liquid from under a handlebar mustache into a tall McDonald's cup, "but did you get any post-season awards?"

"All-conference, all-county, all-state Group 1," I blurt with tanned cheeks flushing.

"That's more like it," grins the former professional baseball pitcher, smoothing a glossy black comb-over across a balding pate. "First practice at three tomorrow."





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