Greeley Football Team Holds Strongman Competition

Members of Horace Greeley's varsity football team came out Saturday afternoon to competitively test their feats of the strength and their endurance.

The Strongman Competition has been going on for eight years and was started to supplement weight room activities, according to Head Coach William Tribou. Members of the team have to start training in December, waking up twice a week to practice a 6:15 a.m., according to Tribou.

The participating teammates make up next year's varsity team and does not include current seniors, Tribou said. Alongside the players, two Quaker alums there to participate: Matt Witko, who played in 2007 and just won an NCAA Division III lacrosse title with Tufts, and Joe Aurora, who played on the team in the late 1990s. They were jokingly referred to as "has beens" during the event.

Also on hand to compete were two New Castle police officers: Raymond Bourbeau, a patrolman and Daniel Corrado, a detective. Bourbeau said that they were there for the camaraderie and sportsmanship. Tribou said that police have been invited for the past three years.

The events at the competition were: carrying weights on shoulders while running across the field, lifting weights across the field with arms and pushing medium-sized heavy tires, to name a few. Also included were pushing wheelbarrows filled with cinderblocks, pushing a giant tire as a group and getting into teams for tug of war.

Awareness and interest in the event has built up over the years. Tribou said that a football parents group has advertised it, and general spectators also come and watch.

Players interviewed expressed their opinions of the event.

Jamie Nottingham, a freshman going into his sophomore year, said, "We've been training a lot, so it was definitely – it's a lot harder to perform out here in the hot sun and doing everything right after another than it is at six o'clock in the morning, at a morning workout. But, I feel like our coach prepared us really well and it was a great experience."

Current junior and future senior Max Johnson said it was "Very tough, but as a group it was fun."

After the games were finished, teammates and attendees gathered to chow down and relax.

"Everybody's invited to the party," Tribou said.