Author
Laura Dayton.
21 articles
Laura Dayton contributed 21 articles to BFS Magazine, from 1997 to 2005 — part of the coaching voice that shaped the BFS Total Program.
Recurring themes include Squat, Speed, Bench Press, and Football. Every story is free — read it online or open the original magazine layout as a PDF.
BFS Helps Women of All Ages
of All Ages Lady of America, Napa, brings BFS protocols and equipment to a new generation of women wo worlds have collided at Lady of America ( health club in Napa, California. While we carry members an endless variety of new angles and intensities to keep their workouts progress
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A CLUB OF THEIR OWN: Soroco High School
There is a Gary Larson cartoon that depicts a finishing school for gorillas. Walking in are straight and tall, intelligent-looking apes. Coming out are primates with hunched backs, forward head posture, furrowed brows and the slumped, scrunched shoulders that people get when they
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ONE BAD DECISION
Like millions of other teens, Mike Dayton, Jr. had to deal with the pressures and difficulties of a broken family. From his California birthplace Mike traveled with his mother to Florida when he was just six years old. His father and namesake, who was separated from him by a cont
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TITLE IX: Girl Power
Let's try an experiment in time travel. It's the best way to understand how Title IX - the 1972 educational reform prohibiting discrimination in sports based on gender - came to pass, and why its sweeping ramifications took so long to take effect. If you can, think back thirty ye
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TREVORS CHOICE
Trevor Fallis, just turned 15, has integrated himself into every sport offered at Greencastle Middle School. He runs cross country and track events, has been quarterback three years running since the seventh grade, plays baseball, swims with 26 first-place finishes this year in 3
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GLENELG HIGH SCHOOL
There was a time when school sports programs were intended to build character, teach kids to work as a team and encourage them to have respect for their coaches and each other. Sports helped build strong bodies and sound minds. Today, those notions are nearly forgotten in big cit
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GREAT SHAKES IN SECONDS
Protein blender drinks are definitely an athlete's best friend-two scoops of BFS power powder, a little H2O, whirrrr . . . and you're out the door with a tasty meal guaranteed to provide you with everything from the correct macro-nutrient profile right down to the teeniest vitami
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BRAVE NEW WORLD: Haskell University
Can you name this sports celebrity? Hes frequently called the worlds greatest athlete, and remains Americas greatest all-around athlete of the past century. He won gold medals in both the pentathlon and the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics. He founded professional football, bein
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FROM PARALYSIS TO POLE VAULTING (Christi Lehman)
Run, Christi, run! The cry shattered the quiet countryside of Hesston, Kansas. It did not take place at a track and field event. It happened at a home. It did not hail the start of a race. It signaled a tragedy. Christi, 12, managed to take one step in response to her fathers
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A COACHS PRIDE (Dana Lawson)
Four years ago UC Berkeley Coach Randy Ziraldo watched a high school athlete lumber through a shot put. He talked to the girl, Dana Lawson, as he would any potential recruit, but knew this was no scholarship athlete. There was some further contact between Randy and Dana via the p
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A CLEAR SHOT AT SUCCESS: LOOK OUT FOR LEEANN
Welcome to Malta, Montana. Population: about 1800, if the Smiths don't move out of town next week. Beautiful and rustic as the town is in the northern part of the state, it's easy to imagine pioneers Lewis and Clark crossing the wide-open plains as they trekked toward the rough a
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THE SKYS THE LIMIT With FEMALE POLE VAULTERS
Once again Americans huddled around their televisions to watch the summer Olympics. However, things were different this year. The women emerged as stars in sports other than gymnastics and track. Overall, the women were the media grabbers, and dont think for a minute that millio
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NORTH FORSYTH HIGH SOFTBALL
Now some of the boys arent going to like hearing this, but our girls hit the weights with more aggression than they do, says Coach Jim Bishop, strength conditioning coach at Georgias North Forsyth High School. A coach for more than 30 years, Bishop has been at North Forsyth s
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BEANE THERE DOIN THAT: Shepherd College
Most of the time we don't know when history is in the making. Did Mrs. Einstein know that her drooling little baby Albert would grow into the smartest man in the world? When little George Washington started his first day at military school, could anyone envision him the father of
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FOR INDIANAS ARTESIANS ITS NOT THE WATER, ITS BFS!
When Indiana's first certified strength and conditioning specialist came to Martinsville High School in 1996, the girls' golf and tennis teams paid little heed. The attitude at the time was that golfers don't need big muscles, and in tennis, speed is more important than strength.
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LIGHTWEIGHT TRAINING EQUIPMENT
Like the Nehru collars and striped stovepipe polyester pants of the 60s, there are some things us old folks remember but just don't like to talk about. For coaches, a period they'd like to forget is when weight training was frowned upon. Hard as it might be to believe today, ther
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SHE'S STILL GOING EVEN AFTER THE GOLD
Plyometric drills and pulling a sled around the track are tough work. That's why Chryste Gaines likes them. And that attitude is why she has an Olympic gold medal sitting on her shelf, next to her four-year pre-med degree from Stanford University. Sometimes, it's hard to tell whi
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THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, DAD
When Steve Cole was a freshman he had some doubts about playing football, but they were fleeting. Hed been picked on most of his life for being short, and was used to standing up for himself. Besides, he had the support and encouragement of his dad, mom and step-dad. The doubts
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"WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETE"
Points. Totals. Stats. Numbers are what count in sports, especially in the decathlon. But on the day Dan OBrien was born, the stats on this future world record decathlete didnt look so promising. Matter of fact, they were pretty bleak. Dan was born in 1966 to a Finnish mother a
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CHAIN REACTION!
It began a couple of years ago in St. Louis when Frank Smith of Hazelwood East High School decided to hold a BFS clinic. Clinician Jim Brown gave the clinic and went a step further by staying in touch with the school staff to help them redesign their weight room. We feel that we
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