ADDING MUSCLE: Trinity builds new weight training facility

Trinity’s middle school football players break in new weight room that opened earlier this year. (Tim Gayle)

 By TIM GAYLE

When Granger Shook took over as Trinity Presbyterian’s new football coach in the spring of 2020, one of the first priorities was the weight room.

“We had a functioning weight room, but it wasn’t what our student-athletes deserved,” Shook said. “When I arrived two and a half years ago, I saw the weight room and I don’t think anything had changed (from his days as a Trinity athlete in the early 2000s). We were still using the same racks, a lot of the same barbells, the same plates. And, yes, they were functional, but I thought our players deserved the best.”

The school unveiled a new weight room this February, adding additional elements over the next three months to become fully functional this summer.

“A weight room is important for so many different reasons,” Shook said. “A weight room services every student-athlete. It’s not limited to one sport. I’m really excited that other sports are using this weight room as frequently as they are. In some places, you have a male weight room and a female weight room. Well, that’s not what we wanted.”

The weight room, once housed on the second floor, was a closed-in facility with racks and weights atop a rubberized floor. The new facility, located between the two basketball gyms on the first floor, is a brighter multi-purpose room located closer to the athletes it serves. 

“This is a centralized location,” Shook said. “It’s next to our female locker rooms, it’s around the corner from our male locker rooms. The exterior door (in the hallway outside of the weight room) goes to the soccer and football fields. It’s in between the two gyms, whereas the old weight room was on the English hall. It’s just a great location.”

The flooring and turf were the last additions to the weight room, two additions that complete the estimated $200,000 cost of the equipment in the facility.

“When I worked at Colquitt County (Ga.), we had turf in the weight room and we were able to go through agility drills,” Shook said. “That’s something we’re going to incorporate into our workouts, instead of having to do a workout in here, then go outside to work on pro agilities. It saves transition time and keeps all of our coaches in one spot. With this weight room, we can work out the entire football team at one time.

“The flooring is the same flooring the University of Alabama uses. We were very blessed to give our students what they deserve.”

The area, which once housed a pair of classrooms, comes complete with a renovated hallway detailing past Wildcat accomplishments on the walls. While other weight rooms may be larger, Shook believes Trinity’s facility, which boasts six double racks with four barbells at each rack, has everything a weight room needs.

“We could have 48 barbells performing a lift at any given time and that’s a lot,” Shook said. “That’s more than (larger schools in the area) have and could do at any one time. The space isn’t as big as a 7A school but it’s just as functional and we can lift just as much weight in here.

“We’ve been blessed to look at other facilities in the state, in north Alabama, south Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and this weight room rivals the best of the best. I’ve been blessed to have been in a lot of nice facilities and work in them. This weight room is just as nice, if not nicer, than any weight room I’ve ever been in.”

The old weight room will be converted into a multi-purpose room for academic classes (much like the previous use for the new weight room area) and the weights will be sold. 

The new weight room, meanwhile, includes six 72-inch televisions that can display, for example, the workout schedule, preventing coaches have having to print one out for each athlete.

“We have team meetings that we’ll have in here and we can have inspirational messages, Bible verses, motivational speakers,” Shook said. “The sky’s the limit. I want to have a (video) NCAA Tournament in here and have our guys playing football on these six TVs. There are so many things we can do in this room.”

In addition, the weight room will feature iPads that can be placed on the ends of the barbells “that will sync up with the TVs, so we’ll be able to monitor bar speed, monitor reps and monitor things we’ve never been able to do. Nobody that I know will have the technology this room will be able to have.

“This facility has definitely brought a spark to all of our athletic programs. It’s a big source of pride for our student-athletes and the Trinity community.”