Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania
OUR WEIGHT ROOM - June 1st, 1984 Armed with picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and an occassional jack hammer, our students and maintenance personnel, along with interested citizens of the community, dug out this massive area of dirt in the cellar of our Middle School. After 13 months of digging, this room finally stood empty!
Jack Cassebaum, Head Football Coach, stated, "It's not like that room had some dirt in it. That room was completed filled with dirt, way over everyone's head. It was 91/2 feet high, 25 feet wide, and 127 feet long!!
Thousands of wheelbarrow loads, each weighing about 330 pounds, had to be wheeled a good distance to a 10' ramp. The momentum of this ramp then helped us wheel the dirt to its final destination 100 yards from the developing weight room. Coach Cassebaum affirmed, "It was awfully hard. We couldn't see much improvement as we worked. Sometimes it seemed like we'd dig for hours and still not make any progress.
We then put in steel grid reinforcements, twice the width needed for each section. We bent the grid in half to a 90° angle. Half was placed against the excavated wall, the other half to be bent back again when the adjacent section was dug.
Compared to removing the dirt, our next step was unbelievable! We had to erect a support wall because one was never built on that side of the basement. We divided the 101' wall into 18 sections, 7W high by 5'6" wide, and excavated every other section.
Footers were poured, and a wooden frame was built over the grid for the concrete wall. We wheeled the cement from a truck 60 yards away and filled the wooden frames like this. Lighter men filled 5 gallon buckets. Heavier men carried the buckets to our waiting biggest and strongest men who then poured them into the 7V2 foot tall frame. Each support section took 2 yards of cement. After the cement dried, we removed the frames and dug the remaining sections. Then we bent the excess grid back into place against the wall, built the frames again, and repeated the whole cement process.
Continued on Page 20 19 There seemed to be 110 end to the buckets of cement and the wheelbarrow !oclds of StOlll' used ,1S ,1 b,lSl', but the wall and floor were fillally finished. (Text for photoes supplied by Di'lIl11il l\el'd).
May 25, 1986 - THE FINISHED PRODUCT 177 feet long, 27 feet wide, 4,779 square feet"
WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY AT ELIZABETHTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA By Greg Shepard Jack Cassebaum: FB Coach The hard work paid off as the Bears from Elizabethtown went 9-2-1 in 1986. They won the League Championship of Lancaster County and were Runners-up in District play.
Like the pyramids of Egypt, Jack Cassebaum, head football coach at Elizabethtown High School in Pennsylvania, took on a similar task. Coach Cassebaum must be an Upper Limit thinker. No ordinary man would have thought of it; let alone attempt it. Let alone do it' At first, it must have seemed like trying to drain an ocean with a tablespoon. Jack gets my vote for motivator of the year. Coach Cassebaum needed a weight room. He thought it was essential for all sports and especially his football team. Cassebaum, a man with great vision, felt that a project of this magnitude would help reverse the fortunes of Elizabethtown football.
As the new football coach, Cassebaum began his foreboding task in June of 1984. Can you imagine? "Come on guys, we're gonna go dig dirt. It's gonna be loads of fun. In fact, each load of dirt is 330 pounds'" How'd Coach Cassebaum get 'em to do it? "You gotta believe baby'" Coach Cassebaum was convinced of the worthiness of the project. He had seen an intense weight-training program breed success in his football programs in his undefeated team at Punxsatawney High School and at McCaskey High School. Slowly and painstakingly the dirt began to disappear. It took 13 months! It was a community project to create a 4,779 foot weight room at the Middle School.
In Cassebaum's first year, the Elizabethtown Bear football team struggled. The next year, 1985, after a whole year of digging, the Bears improved. The corner was being turned. The light could be seen at the end of the tunnel. Last fall, Coach Cassebaum's team won the League Championship of Lancaster County and in District play finished in the runner-up position with a 9-2-1 record. The weight room was finished and the athletes had the whole summer to enJoy a fantastic weight room. It also has a rifle range and is used by the community. Cassebaum, in the off-season, coaches the Power Lifting team and in April of 1986, he took 22 kids to the County Championship. They won that team championship.
Coach Cassebaum states, "Intense weight training is central to any philosophy of football. Everyone else is doing it. You gotta do it just to stay even. But, it goes deeper than that with our program. The kids who work hard on the weights are the ones with the dedication to be winners, and that's what we want to be - winners'" We at BFS certainly believe Elizabethtown is full of winners. What Coach Cassebaum taught in a slow methodical way of digging dirt is of great philosophical importance. You can accomplish great things, if everyone pitches in to help. You can accomplish great things, if you'll just begin with the first step or in Coach Cassebaum's case, the first shovelful.
You can accomplish great things, if you'll just keep at it. I visited Elizabethtown on April 1L 1987 and I can assure you - those lessons were learned. It is a special place, with special people, with a special Coach, a "Quest For Greatness" Coach. 21
From BFS Magazine — May/June 1987. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
