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February 2004

Fitness Center staff member aims for Olympic tryouts

Trey Southwood, who is an assistant manager at the Dorion Fitness Center, is weightlifting his way into a chance at the Olympic Trials in May.

Anyone who spends much time at the Dottie Dorion Fitness Center knows Trey Southwood. He’s the unassuming assistant manager who helps patrons with strength and conditioning programs.

But when he’s not at the fitness center, you’ll probably find him involved in a rigorous weightlifting training program as he prepares for his shot at the Olympic Trials in May. The odds are steep, but his determination is strong.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will invite 20 lifters from across the nation to compete for only three spots on the team.

Southwood knows his chances of making the team are slim, but just getting a tryout would be a great honor, he says. At the recent American Open and North American Championships in Atlanta, he went from 13th place to 6th place in his weight classification, improving his chances for the Olympic tryouts.

Southwood does not fit the stereotype of a weight lifter. At 5 feet, 6 inches tall, he competes in the 62-kilo class — that’s 136.5 pounds. Yet despite his size, he has been able to lift 275 pounds in competition. That may seem impossible until you understand the determination and commitment he has made to the sport.

Before competing in Atlanta, he endured a schedule that consisted of two training sessions per day Monday through Thursday and one on Friday. Each session lasted from 90 minutes to two and a half hours.

The determination is even more remarkable considering the serious shoulder injury he suffered weightlifting three years ago. While most people would have given up on the sport, he went through a difficult rehabilitation process and got himself back in competitive shape.

In addition to the physical costs, there are monetary costs to competing in weightlifting events across the country. He has competed in cities throughout Florida, and he has competed in Seattle, Buffalo, N.Y., and Little Rock, Ark. Dottie Dorion has helped him with much of those costs by being his sponsor to some of the competitions.

Despite the time commitments to training and his job at the fitness center, Southwood still finds time for other pursuits. He graduated from UNF in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in athletic training. He has worked with the Jacksonville Tomcats in the strength and conditioning programs, as well as helping with preseason physicals at the Jaguars mini-camp.

You can call Southwood a lot of things. He is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, a certified personal trainer and a certified athletic trainer. Just don’t call him a bodybuilder. If you do, Southwood suddenly loses his normally quiet disposition.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about weightlifting and that’s one of them,” he says.

“It’s almost an insult to call us bodybuilders. I think they are vain and self-centered. I don’t see that as a sport at all but more of a beauty contest,” he adds with a note of disdain in his voice.

This will be Southwood’s final year of competitive weightlifting. Regardless of the outcome, he plans to move on to coaching younger weight lifters. He is already the adviser for the recently established UNF Weightlifting Club and is active in Team Florida, the statewide weightlifting organization.

“I want to give them (younger weight lifters) what I didn’t have, a good one-on-one relationship with a coach,” he says. “I want these lifters to know that there are people supporting them and will help then as much as possible.”

Even if Southwood doesn’t make the Olympic trials, he will likely replace that dream with another – coaching an Olympic hopeful to a medal.