In early November, South opened a brand-new weights facility where the wrestling room was previously located.

According to Steve Stanicek, P.E. instructional supervisor, this new weight room is fully functional, and a variety of P.E. classes use it during the day. With the additional equipment and space, he hopes that P.E. classes will be able to focus on building strength more successfully and frequently than they have in the past.

“We wanted to move to more of a strength format for fitness testing [as] we found that one of our biggest weaknesses was strength,” Stanicek said. “We were having a hard time integrating that into our curriculum and figuring out how to do it with just one weight room, with strength and conditioning classes there every period.”

Tom Mietus, head wrestling coach and weight room supervisor, considers the relocation of the weight room to be a huge change.

“Our numbers have slowly built up to the point where we couldn’t fit everyone in the wrestling room anymore,” Mietus said. “We had the freshmen wrestling out on the track, which was less than ideal with practices going on. Now we’re able to all practice together.”