May-1987- Track season junior year, at one of the major relay meets, it was announced the prior week that there was going to be a “clean and jerk weightlifting contest” sponsored by some guy I had never heard of. I, of course, was all excited and trained that week on my technique. As it turns out all it was, was a guy with some rubber mats and an Olympic barbell set in the middle of a grass field. I took second place with a lift of 265 lbs of power cleaned to the chest and then pressed over my head. The kid who won was a senior and did 275. It was just sort of a “friendly” contest. I am 17 years old and in 11th grade.
July-1987- It’s summertime and I am training for football. I get a call from a coach I had never spoken to before, coach Himmel? Humle? Burle?
I can’t remember his exact name or his phone number but I do remember that he is from somewhere in Colorado. Anyway, he is the United States Power lifting team coach and he wants me to drop everything that I am doing and move to Colorado on a whims notice, to go train for the clean and jerk. I asked him in confusion why he was calling me, I finished second in the contest?
He then says to me I finished second but the guy I lost to was a year older but more importantly, he was also 50 pounds heavier. So pound for pound I was much stronger and as it turns out that in my age group and for my weight (17 years old and between 201 and 229 lbs.) I was ranked fifth in the country, in this one particular lift. This may seem like a dream come true for me, but let me tell you. Just like with anything you do, even if you really enjoy it, there can be things you really hate about it as well.
The power clean and the clean and jerk were my absolute least favorite exercises. To be blunt, I loved working out but I despised those particular two exercises especially. This along with the fact that I could not just “get up and leave my mother.” She was doing much better, but by no stretch of the imagination could her mental condition be considered to be “stable.” I am 17 years old and about to enter the 12th grade and I do not go to Colorado to train for the U.S. powerlifting team.
Aug-1987- Football camp senior year, I test in the bench press 390 lbs, in the squat 505 lbs, and in the power clean 280 lbs. We finish the season 6-3 and are division champs. I begin working out again and I start to think about college.
Dec 1987-May 1988- My workouts continue very well. However, I develop a “new idea“. Now when I go through my workout mentally at night I have added a new “twist“. When I am down on my “level” in my mind I have added a huge chair in the room in which I am standing. Using my Silva mind control I sit in the chair. On the left-hand side of the chair are some “air hoses” like you would find in an auto garage.
I imagine, that on both of my arms there are these “air hoses” coming out of my arms. Like an I-V hose coming out of your arm. This is my “pump up chair“. In my mind, I connect the hoses coming out of my arms to the hoses on the side of the chair. I push a button located on the right arm of the chair with my right index finger and the chair activates. Like an air station, I can feel the vibrations as I sit in the chair. As I sit there I see my entire body start to swell. Like blowing up a balloon.
I mentally tell my muscles to grow and swell like balloons, AND THEY DO! I do this for about six weeks. This works so well that many of the parents and teachers think that I am now doing steroids. I am not, but the situation snowballs into some kind of “witch hunt” and they make me take a steroid test. What happened was as I am working out one day Father Jack (the local priest who is always hanging around the kids and the football team) comes into the weight room as I am working out. He says to me “Andy, there is a lot of talk about your steroid usage, and if you admit it to me right now everything will be all right.” “Father Jack,” I said, “I don’t use steroids.” He says “I’m going to ask you one more time to admit to using steroids.” I look him right in the eye and I say “Look, Father, I DON’T use steroids.” And he got very angry and says to me and I will never forget this “Don’t ever speak to me again you f*cking liar, they are going to hang you by your balls and I am going to be there to watch!”
A few days later Jeff Brown (one of the kids on the team) comes into the weight room and tells me that Father Jack wants to see me at the grammar school as soon as I am done. When I finish my workout I go up to the school and Father Jack is waiting for me impatiently. He grabs my arm and I get brought in front of some kind of panel in the basement of the grade school located down the street. There are four members of the panel and the rest of the room is filled with teachers and parents. Dr. Purrizzo who is the chief orthopedic surgeon at valley hospital in Bergen county New Jersey. Bergen county is the third most affluent area in the country, and the towns of Saddle River and Ramsey are in the top towns in the country in terms of wealth.