Edison honors Bruce Belcher, Dave White with weight room dedication
As far as buildings go, one thing weight rooms are not known for is being glamorous, but Edison High School pulled out all the stops for the dedication of its facility on Friday afternoon.
The pep band jazzed up the crowd, which included Huntington Beach Union High School District board members and the football team, for a momentous occasion.
Edison renamed its weight room after two giants in school history in former athletic director Bruce Belcher and legendary coach Dave White.
After a series of speakers, Belcher and White stood together and unveiled a plaque bearing their names and faces above the following words: “This strength training facility is named in honor of Bruce Belcher and Dave White. Through the perseverance of these two men, this building was constructed. Their dedication to Edison student-athletes makes us all proud to be a Charger.”
Both men got emotional as they addressed attendees at the ceremony. Belcher, who paused at times to gather himself, did so when recalling the day school administration informed him that the indoor weight room — for which he and White had begun a fundraising campaign — was going to receive financial backing from the district.
“I cried,” Belcher said. “I went back to my room, and I was so excited. It was really a neat thing. I didn’t find out until later, it may have been a year or two, that [then superintendent] Dr. [Van] Riley was awesome because he came in, he saw that our athletic facilities — not just at Edison, but in our entire district — were in poor shape, and he got the two stadiums redone, and he wanted to do things at the different schools.
“He offered the principals an idea, or basically, ‘Hey, you can have one big project at your campus,’ and [former Edison principal D’liese Melendez chose this, so without the two of them, I don’t know if this would even exist today.”
Belcher arrived in 1974 to Edison, where he taught U.S. and world history, physical education, health, child development, as well as first aid and CPR. He served as athletic director for 21 years and as activities director for four years. As a coach, he has mentored football, golf and track and field athletes. Additionally, his contributions include starting the Edison Alumni Hall of Fame.
White, a 1974 graduate of Edison, returned to teach at his alma mater in 1979 until he retired in 2017. He won two CIF titles and reached the section finals five times as Edison’s head football coach.
Like Belcher, White’s influence was also felt in more than one sport. He coached girls’ basketball for 13 years, winning a CIF title in 1987, and he coached girls’ track and field for four years. White’s accolades include three selections as the CIF Coach of the Year and inductions into the CIF Hall of Fame and the California Football Coaches Hall of Fame.
“The reason I’m here is because of all the coaches that I’ve coached with, I’ve played for, the athletes that I’ve coached, the athletes that I’ve played with,” White said. “… I had some great athletes, some great coaches, some great parents.
“People always ask me, ‘As a head coach, how is it?’” he added. “I said, ‘It’s unbelievable, really.’ I had the dream job, the greatest job in the world.”
Edison athletic director Rich Boyce said he had been waiting for the day when Belcher and White could be honored in this manner. Individuals for whom a building is being named after must be retired for five years, he said.
Boyce added that the lessons learned in a weight room are befitting of the legacy left by Belcher and White.
“Weightlifting and weight training builds a lot of character because you’re not going to see results right away,” Boyce said in a phone interview Thursday. “You’re just not. You’ve got to do the work. If you do the work, you’ll see the results. You’ve got to do a lot of work to see the results, and that’s what that building represents.
“It took a lot of hard work to get that thing built, and our athletes are doing a lot of hard work in there. It’s building a lot of character for them, and it really shows up that our teams are pretty well representing athletically, and a lot of it has to do with that building.”
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