Staff file photo by C.B. Schmelter / Chattanooga Christian School football players break through their spirit sign before a home game against Boyd Buchanan on Sept. 20, 2019. CCS fullback and linebacker Preston Powell is a dedicated weightlifter who plans to compete this November in youth weighlifting in Lima, Peru.In his dual role as Baylor School's strength and conditioning coach and head of Bridge City Strength & Performance, Brice Johnson has seen more than his share of outstanding athletes. Yet he also believes he may have never worked with anyone who's so swiftly achieved outrageous success in the sport of Olympic weightlifting as Preston Powell, a junior at Chattanooga Christian School.
"His progress is mind-blowing," said Johnson of Preston, who will represent the United States, coronavirus willing, in the rescheduled 2020 Pan American Youth Championships in Lima, Peru, come November.
"Nothing phases him. He loves the grind, and almost no athletes love weightlifting. But there's never a day he doesn't want to lift. He's excelled better at that than any other athlete I've ever worked with, and I've worked with some good ones."
How quickly has Preston progressed in the 81-kilometer (178.6-pound) weight class? Less than three years ago, he and his father, David - a former walk-on football player at Auburn who was later inducted into the Semi-Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the Chattanooga Steam - approached Johnson about helping Preston become a better football player for the Chargers.
"We felt like Preston needed to get stronger and faster," David said. "We'd heard great things about how Brice helped his clients in those areas. Hard work won't get you to the NFL, but strength and speed can tip the scales at the high school level."
Added Preston: "All my life, everything has been hard for me. I wasn't naturally good at football, but I love it so much."
CCS coach Mark Mariakis loudly disagrees that young Powell is not naturally gifted at both linebacker and fullback for the Chargers.
"Preston brings so much to our program," Mariakis said Friday. "He's got a great skill set. He's one of the fastest kids in our school. He's also a walking muscle. Plus, he's got that relentlessness you love to see in kids."
Still, Preston wanted to get better, and Johnson convinced him weightlifting was his best path to improvement.
Not that he was immediately sold on Johnson's workout routines.
"I started out not enjoying weightlifting," Preston recalled. "You need a daily routine. It's difficult if you're inconsistent. It's like homework; you have to do it every day. Now I crave it. It's become an addiction. If I don't work out, I don't feel good the rest of the day."
AP photo by Thibault Camus / The 2024 Paris Olympics logo is shown during a presentation in the French capital on Oct. 21, 2019. Chattanooga Christian junior Preston Powell could be on a path toward representing his country in the Summer Games four years from now, though he said he's more focused on improvement and the next meet ahead.In that sense, Preston is very much like his father, who said of his own dedication to weightlifting: "It's a passion of mine. I weight train almost every day. I love the endorphins. I'm addicted to it."
With David, it's not only weights, however. After his football career ended, he took a 50-hour Navy SEAL training course. Though not a SEAL himself, he has trained people who have gone on to earn that distinction, and he puts the Chargers through a similar workout at the start of each football season.
"David's all about fitness and weight training," Mariakis said. "It's really a neat family."
Preston didn't have such a neat start to his first national competition, however.
"Our plan was to fly into San Francisco, then drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Anaheim, where the competition was being held," David recalled of that 2019 trip.
"But Preston got sick not long after we landed. Fever. Nauseated. Weak. It was awful."
Somehow, some way, after a couple of miserable days in a hotel, he made it to the stage to lift, but in his father's words, "Preston was exhausted. The day before the competition he couldn't even get out of bed to use the bathroom."
Nearly a year later, David looks back on Preston's determination to compete against all odds and says, "To see him out there, knowing how sick he'd been, it made me feel like, as a father, I'd done something right."
Come The Arnold Classic in early March in Columbus, Ohio, Preston had done enough right to win a gold medal in the clean and jerk for his age group with a 145-kilo (319-pound) lift on his final attempt, a score that left him second in the overall competition.
"There was a lot of pressure on that last lift," Johnson said. "I told him, 'This is for the gold medal.' You never know how someone will handle that. It could inspire him or it could overwhelm him.
"Preston looked at me and said, 'I'm going home with the gold medal. You don't have to worry about it.' Then he did just that. As a coach, that's what you hope to see."
Assuming the COVID-19 pandemic allows such a thing, what Preston most hopes for is an opportunity to both play football for one final season at CCS and represent his country in weightlifting this November, though he knows the latter will come first if there's a conflict.
"I really want to play football," he said. "I've always had a huge passion for football."
But he also knows his only chance to represent his country in the 2024 Olympics in Paris would be in weightlifting.
"That's the ultimate goal, for sure," Preston said. "But thinking about the Olympics puts too much pressure on me. I'm nowhere near my peak. I'm just worrying about the next meet ahead of me."
His coach wouldn't disagree with that approach.
"Can he make the Olympics? That's hard to say," Johnson said. "But if Preston continues on the path he's on, he just might. He can be taught the techniques and strategy he'll need at that level. But without the love for the sport, you can't ever become a champion at the highest level and he already has that love."
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.