Sailors exhibit strength during Lift-A-Thon

“Before you leave ask yourself:

Have I done everything I can to make the team better?

Have I done everything I can to make myself better?

Am I totally prepared for combat?

How do I want to be remembered?”

Those words are painted just above the exit door inside the weight room at Newport Harbor High. The school’s football players mostly use the weight room and those questions are directed toward them.

There are weight records, along with football records on the walls of the weight room, as well as portraits of former players who went on to play for college teams.

That’s where the Sailors work with the hopes of achieving their dreams, and accomplishing goals for the football program.

Just outside the weight room, the Sailors also work hard. They displayed their tenacity and aggression through squats during their annual Lift-A-Thon on Friday.

The lifting is also an exhibition for the players’ parents, and the program’s freshmen, who continue to learn about technique.

The technique aspect is very important for the Newport Harbor Football lifters. The freshmen train and learn about lifting with PVC pipes. They spent Friday watching the older players lift.

“We hope they can learn and the Lift-A-Thon motivates them,” Newport Harbor Coach Jeff Brinkley said. “They’re just right now learning technique through PVC pipe. Hopefully they can see if they learn the technique properly someday they can say, ‘I’ll be lifting some weight like these guys.’”

Weightlifting is essential for any program. Newport Harbor values the aspect with great importance because the Sailors believe the strength helps avoid most injuries.

Tony Ciarelli, the Sailors’ defensive coordinator and strength coach, is well-versed with traditional Olympic–style lift fundamentals that he teaches to the Sailors. Many of the techniques and movements translate directly to tackling and blocking on the football field.

“Strength is a key factor on the football field because it’s mass versus mass,” Ciarelli said. “Sooner or later it comes down to who can push, who is the strongest? Why we’re doing the squats, leg strength is imperative. We do the Olympic lifts because explosiveness is imperative … The Olympic lifting is for basic athleticism, understanding how the body works, understanding your center of mass, control, balance all those sorts of things will definitely help on the football field.”

Ciarelli calls Michael Jarboe a leader in the weight room. The incoming junior lineman is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, player in the program.

Someone like Jarboe is important for the Sailors because once someone like him achieves a heavy weight, the others usually follow and do the same. It’s contagious, Ciarelli says.

When Jarboe started with squats about a year ago, his max was 175 kilograms (about 385 pounds), great for a sophomore.

He’s now shot up to 215 kilograms (about 474 pounds).

The weightlifting is important for the Sailors who sometimes appear they’re smaller than the other players in the rough Sunset League.

Mental strength is also very important, Jarboe and Ciarelli said.

“You have to tell yourself you can make it,” Jarboe said. “Our coach teaches us we have to have big egos. We have to know how good we are. Sometimes we have to think we are even better than we really are, and that helps in everything we do because I also compete in shotput and discus. That helps a lot. You have to walk in knowing you’re going to try to be better than everybody else there.”