Gym Owner Inspires With No-Nonsense Approach

Substance over flash. Sweat over looking good.

In a world in which modern gyms often appear pristine, is more of a throwback to the 1970s and '80s experience. Gym members use older weight lifting equipment instead of sparkling new models. Dated pictures of competitive weightlifting line the gym's walls in the area used by team members to practice their snatch, clean and jerk exercises.

Coffee, 64, has operated gyms in three different East Marietta locations since 1980. For the last 10 years, he's been located in the Eastgate Shopping Center at 1800 Lower Roswell Road. It's the smallest facility he's used for his gym.

But, size and appearance mean little to Coffee. His success in developing elite competitive weightlifters comes from years of coaching a sport that has dwindled in popularity.

From 1987 to 2009, Coffee's Gym produced 36 out of 70 U.S. medal winners at the world championships. It has turned out five Olympic athletes and spawned 16 women's national Olympic championship titles. Its most famous athlete, Robin Byrd-Goad, was the 1994 women's world champion and competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

"Hardly anyone knows we're here," Coffee said of his gym. "I'm not high profile, but I've been coaching in Marietta for 30 years. … I don't make a lot of pretense about this. As you can see, this is a no-nonsense gym but you can use chalk here, belch, drop weights and have a dog.

"If people want to be a weightlifter and try it, they can't come to any other place like this in Atlanta or metro Atlanta. We're weightlifting. We're the last stand."

Coffee doesn't intend to retire anytime soon.

"[I'll run this gym] until they take me out of here feet first," said Coffee, who grew up in Eastman, Ga., and still lifts weights to stay in shape. "As long as I'm mentally and physically able to do it, I'll do it. I don't have any plans to move to Florida. My plan is to stay here. I look the best here.

"It's what I do and I like to do it," he continued. "It's reinforcing in a lot of ways. I just like to teach the lifting and go to the meets. It's nice to go to the local meets around here, and national and world meets."

The 30 members of his gym who also compete for him hope Coffee has many more coaching years in his future. A few go to great lengths to work out under his watchful eyes. Edward Baker, 18, drives 90 minutes from his Gainesville home five days a week to have Coffee coach him. 

"Before I was on a (weightlifting) team, but I didn't feel exactly close to everyone there," Baker said. "Now, I feel like this gym is my family. John is on us all the time for technique. It's really easy to take a set off with bad habits, but instead with him watching you, it makes you less likely to take a set off or be lazy."

Coffee's attention to technique isn't taken lightly. He proudly boasts that in his coaching career a weight lifter under his guidance has never required surgery.

Juan Sepulveda, 58, stumbled across Coffee's Gym when settling in Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina devastated his New Orleans home. A top weightlifter in Puerto Rico from 1975-1981 and likely to make the 1980 Olympic team before America's boycott of the Moscow Games, Sepulveda started lifting competitively again after a 25-year layoff. Sepulveda has a goal of lifting 350 pounds "from the floor" before he reaches his 60th birthday.

"It's his simplicity," said Sepulveda, who works in hotel management. "[John] knows and doesn't brag. If you can take someone to win a world championship that speaks for itself. … He passes the bounds of coaching. Coach is too little for John. He's a lifetime coach. He'll coach you for life."

Katie Lynch, 17, was invited five months ago to the gym by Coffee's Gym Manager Rachael Bommicino.

"I never go home. I'm always here. It feels wrong when I don't lift weights," said Lynch, a Wheeler High School senior who played softball in the fall. "It's really easy to build friendships here because you can see people at their best and worst. If you miss or make your lift, it brings out the best or worst. It tells you about their character."

Coffee's Gym is open daily, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Friday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. It offers a $35 monthly membership rate, $75 three-month membership and $225 yearly rate. It also has a $5 drop-in daily rate.

Download the movie