By BFS
Pictured is Kirk Stillmak who gained 1200 yards rushing and scored 106 points! McGuffey High School went from 3-7 to first championship ever!! Editor's Note: This year produced some amazing results from those schools who had BFS Clinics, especially from the State of Ohio. All the results are not in as yet but we do know that over 50 schools have now won State High School Football Championships after their clinics since 1977. Below is a letter we received from Frank Sworden, football coach at McGuffey High School in Western Pennsylvania.
SUCCESS STORIES How's this for a turnaround? We went from a 3-7 season to an 8-2 season, won our first championship ever, played in our first playoff game ever, and earned a third place ranking in the W.P.I.A.L. McGuffey High School, Claysville, Pennsylvania, accomplished these achievements this past football season. McGuffey High School has been in existence for 25 years. It has had five winning seasons prior to the 1985 season. We, the present coaching staff, took over seven years ago. After a losing season our first year, we put together three winning seasons in a row. We felt we had the program turned around.
But disaster struck in the form of a 3-6-1 record in 1983 and a 3-7 record in 1984. We needed a change fast. I had used many weightlifting programs over my 17 years in coaching, but in seven years at McGuffey, we used seven different programs with little success. All started out fine, but as time went along, both participation and improvement declined rapidly. I decided I would like to try the B.F.S. Program. After talking to Rick Anderson and some of the high schools where he had put on clinics, I was sold. Trying to persuade the booster club president to spend the money on the B.F.S. Program was another problem.
After much discussion and prodding, I finally convinced the club and the booster president that the B.F.S. Program was exactly what we needed. We held the clinic in early January during, of all things, an 8 inch snowstorm. We are a rural school, but 65 young men attended the clinic. The booster club president, who had intended to stay only long enough to pay Rick, stayed the whole eight hours. Rick was right when he said they would tear the weight room door down after he was finished with them. We showed great improvement in strength and speed. We had 17 lifters bench over 300 pounds; 2 over 400 pounds; 19 squat over 400 pounds. This happened after only seven months of lifting.
I had players who made me stay to open the weight room on early dismissal days due to snowstorms. I had a large group of lifters who never missed one lifting session the entire year. We showed great improvement in speed also, as all four running backs ran the forty in 4.6 seconds. But we still had not played a game yet. The skeptics were still not convinced that the program would help us. We played two pre-season scrimmages and played well in both. Our first game of the season was a forfeit win dlle to a teachers' strike. We finally opened our season with a new school offensive record as we scored 55 points. This record lasted only one week; we scored 56 points in our second game.
We went on to win our first six games. In week seven, we played our biggest rival in front of 9,000 people. With all the media attention and the pressure of being undefeated, we lost game 7. We went into game 10 needing a victory to win our first football championship ever. We came back four times to win 29-16. In the process, we finished 8-2 and won our first conference championship. We did lose a close game in the playoffs to the eventual Western Pennsylvania champions, but McGuffey had tasted success through a lot of hard work and dedication. When the fans in the stands stood up and applauded as we walked off the field after that last game, it made all the work worthwhile.
Our booster club president, Walt Lober, decided to invite Rick Anderson back to put on a clinic and be our guest speaker at this year's football banquet. Walt did this without any prodding from me at all. I did suggest that we also bring Stefan Fernholm to present his Upper Limit Program. There was no debate; it passed unanimously. Thanks, Rick Anderson and B.F.s.!!! 13
From BFS Magazine — January/February 1986. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
