When I started Olympic weightlifting back in the late 1980s, I found out almost immediately about a place called Coffee’s Gym in Georgia. Coffee’s was the dominant force in US women’s weightlifting for several years, basically owning the national team championship for longer than I can remember. The owner and coach of the place was John Coffee. I won’t attempt to describe John in a few words here. Suffice to say he’s probably one of the most memorable characters in the history of US weightlifting, and definitely one of my favorite guys.
 
I’ve been watching top national lifters roll out of Coffee’s for three decades, but there’s a sad note to this article. I’m writing this on May 8, 2017. Just a few days ago, it was publicly announced that Coffee’s Gym is closing down. All good things come to an end, but the legacy of greatness at Coffee’s is fortunately being carried forward into the future generations of our sport through the athletes who came from there. Some of them are people I’ve known my entire career, like Ursula Garza and Robin Byrd. Others, like Edward Baker, are relatively recent additions to the family.
 
Edward is a National University Champion who is moving up the national ranks to the top of the 105-kg weight class, along with starting to break into the coaching game by building a collegiate club at the University of Georgia. One of the things I like most about him is his loyalty to his roots and his coach. Athletes sometimes seem to be getting more and more selfish these days, but guys like Edward are reminders that there are still people in the game who respect the ones who gave them their start. Catalyst Athletics is honored to share his story with you.
 
Tell us about your background. Where are you from, where do you currently live, what’s your occupation, family life, what kind of sports background do you have outside of lifting, etc.
 
I was born and raised in Gainesville, Georgia (much less exciting than Gainesville, Florida) and currently reside in Marietta, Georgia. I got into football in middle school and started weight training with my older brother. I quit football in high school when it became apparent that I wasn’t suited for the sport. I dabbled in cross country my junior and senior year, but my body couldn’t handle both weightlifting and long distance running, so I chose lifting. As for an occupation, I work and teach weightlifting at Coffee’s Gym.
 
Describe your weightlifting history. When/how did you start? Who were your coaches? What were your proudest accomplishments?
 
My freshman year of high school, our high school hired a new football coach named Stan Luttrell whose strength program was centered on the Olympic lifts. There were about 90 other kids on the team, and in the weight room we were grouped together based on strength levels and I was grouped with the weakest (I recall that it took me about six months to be able to snatch 40 kg) so I pretty much coached myself. Now that I think of it, most of the coaches didn’t even know my name. I quit after sophomore year when I realized that I didn’t enjoy the sport at all; I always dreaded going to practice, I remember counting down the minutes until each practice was over. My junior year I purchased Artie Drechsler’s Weightlifting Encyclopedia and used this book to help coach myself, so in an indirect way Artie was coaching me through his literature.

The last seven years I’ve been under the tutelage of John Coffee and have no intentions of leaving. John is my coach, my mentor, and most of all my best friend. 99 percent of what I learned was directly from him, or indirectly through the literature that he passed down to me.
 
My proudest accomplishment would have to be building a club at the University of Georgia that won the Men and Women’s Collegiate National titles in 2014 (along with placing 2^nd in Coed). We were a completely self-funded club of rednecks and actually managed to place ahead of one of the funded Olympic Training sites.
 
In addition to your own lifting, you’ve also been working as a coach. What are the similarities and differences between those two lifestyles?
 
At first, coaching seemed like it would be boring compared to competing in the sport. The reason I even humored the idea of teaching someone technique was to have a better understanding of how to perform the lifts myself. I knew that the bar went from the floor to arm’s length overhead in one motion on a Snatch, and in two motions on the Clean & Jerk, but couldn’t articulate, let alone demonstrate how to do so in an efficient manner.
 
In terms of similarities; whether you’re a lifter or a coach, both require diligence and efficiency. A lifter develops strength and power, and is constantly sharpening their ability to negotiate the barbell from the floor to overhead in the most efficient manner. A coach develops knowledge, wisdom, and insight, and is constantly sharpening their ability to communicate to their athlete in the most efficient manner. The late Karol Guman wrote, “The perfection of technique and testing of its quality can be stopped in no period of a lifters’ development.” Most would agree that this is a never-ending journey: A lifter’s technique is never ‘good enough’. Whether bad habits develop, or an athlete focuses on one strength imbalance to fix a technical fault and results in another, or a lack of concentration in a workout one day causes the lifter to alter their normal way of lifting. I believe the same holds true for coaches. They should be constantly be educating themselves to become better coaches, they are never ‘good enough’.
 
Describe some of the obstacles you face, or maybe some things that frustrate you in your weightlifting life. What kinds of changes would you like to see, either personally or with the sport in general?
 
My biggest frustrations manifested themselves when I was in college. I had started a weightlifting club at the University of Georgia, and we were fortunate to win the men and women’s team titles (along with being second in Coed, placing ahead of one of the U.S. Olympic Training Sites). All of this was done without having a place to train on campus. UGA has an excellent weight room in their rec center that rivals weight rooms of the best college strength programs in the country, but the equipment isn’t allowed to be utilized for their intended purpose. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent to outfit the weight room with bumper plates, barbells, and platforms attached to power racks, yet the plates weren’t allowed to be dropped as it was deemed ‘dangerous’. Our club hopped around at a few different gyms off campus. It wasn’t ideal, but we managed with what we had.
 
I had gotten into an argument with one of the staff after being told not to drop the weight, pointing out that I was dropping plates that were designed to be dropped on a platform that was designed to have weights dropped on it. The argument against this was that “there’s a chance that if you drop it while someone is walking by, it could ricochet off of the platform and hit them.”

Ironically enough, one of the directors of the Rec Center watched me hit this Behind the Neck Jerk and didn’t seem to worry too much about it dropping on my spine.
 
After the Collegiate Nationals, I had thought that this would be the accomplishment needed to show the university that we were serious about our club. Nothing happened. I couldn’t even get the school newspaper to contact me back when I spoke to them about what our club had done. USA Weightlifting wrote a nice article on us, Phil Andrews reached out and said he would help us in any way that he could, but at an SEC school anything besides football, basketball, and gymnastics is irrelevant. I checked on the UGA Student Organizations page, and the weightlifting club no longer exists. I thought that our club deserved more than that.
 
On the bright side, weightlifting in this country seems to be picking up momentum and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more colleges get on board with having a Weightlifting program of some sort.
 
What are your plans and goals for your career? How do you see your future in the sport?
 
In terms of my athletic career, I’d like to have a good few more years competing before I really take a break. I really don’t like declaring specific numbers, but I will say that before I turn 30, I have to beat Joel Lackey’s best lifts.
 
I was about to write, “In terms of my coaching career” but I don’t consider myself to have one yet. I teach people technique, I write training routines and go to meets and count attempts, but when I think of the word ‘coach’ it has a profound meaning. In a podcast I had with Chad Vaughn a while back, he said, “To call yourself a coach is something that should be held in very high regard, and I think that we have too many that refer to themselves as ones too soon.” I’ve been very fortunate to have a coach that would literally go the world and back to see me succeed.
 
I guess I’d say that I want to see out my personal lifting career, and follow in John’s footsteps and get some kind of weightlifting operation going myself.
 
Who are some of your major influences, people you look up to, etc.? Who are the people you want to thank for your success?
 
John Coffee has by far had the greatest influence on me. I always felt like I was lacking a passion for something, and it wasn’t until training with him for a few months that I realized that it was this very sport. Honestly, it wasn’t my passion at first, but when you see someone that cares about his lifters and this sport as much as he does, it becomes a bit contagious.
 
My last meet in high school was the state championships, and at this point I had decided that I was going to attend Lindenwood University on an academic scholarship so that I could go to school and lift simultaneously (This was back in 2010, when CrossFit gyms weren’t nearly as prominent). I saw a group of women in the warm-up room before my session wearing t-shirts that said “Train like hell, you’ll get there” on the back and thought that it was the coolest shirt ever, so I walked over and struck up a conversation. At one point John came over and shook my hand, and I was told that I could get a shirt if I stopped by the gym. Of course, when I went over to Coffee’s Gym for the first time a week later, there weren’t any shirts, but I was just happy to have another place to train.

John was very unassuming, but I could sense right away that he knew what he was talking about. At the time I started training at Coffee’s, I was suffering from patellar tendonitis to the point that I couldn’t stand/sit without wincing in pain, let alone lift. After a training session, John had a conversation with me telling me to take the whole summer off and NOT train to get over the tendonitis. He asked me, “What’s a couple of months in the rest of your life?” It wasn’t until recently that he told me that he didn’t expect me to take his advice, and didn’t think I’d ever come back. I’m glad that I did.
 
I have to thank Ursula Garcia Papandrea. Both she and John are 100 pwexwnr for their athletes, and that means outside of the gym as well. Years back I was out in Austin training with her, and was going through a bit of a rough patch in life. I will never forget when she stayed up until 1:00 AM just to listen to me and give me advice. Anyone would be lucky to have either John or Ursula there for them, I somehow lucked out with both.
 
I can’t thank Artie Drechsler enough for putting out his book, particularly at a time where there were little to no resources available at the time that I needed guidance most. Ever since I met him, he’s been incredibly helpful and supportive.
 
Eric Nofsinger, or ‘Big E’, has been John’s right hand man for decades and has helped me both in the gym and at competitions as long as I’ve known him. With John’s recent health conditions, it’s been a very trying time around the gym; and it couldn’t be done without his help.
 
I’ve always thought very highly of Angel Spassov and the information that he put out in the IWF Symposiums, and he was always willing to give me advice in the occasions that I was able to meet him. He even kicked a man off a platform in his gym just to watch me snatch!
 
A big thank you to Bob Hoffman for cultivating the sport of weightlifting in this country and putting out the Strength & Health magazine. A big thank you to Peary Rader for putting out the informative Ironman magazine, and to Mabel Rader for being the pioneer of women’s lifting, both in weightlifting and powerlifting. Thank you to Tommy Kono for writing arguably the two most valuable books written on weightlifting. Thank you to all of the coaches and athletes that have contributed to our sport.
 
I’d also like to think all of John’s weightlifting family for the support that they’ve shown him, me, and Coffee’s Gym during this time. Coaches like John Thrush, Carl Miller, Bob Takano, Artie Drechsler, Dr. John Garhammer, Sean Waxman, Dr. Mike and Meg Stone, Dr. Kyle Pierce, and Ray Jones have reached out and it means a great deal that they have. I’m sure that there are many names that I missed, but truth be told everyone that has shown their support for me or John has my sincerest gratitude. Thank you all.
 
Keep up the good work, Edward. And keep carrying the traditions of Coffee’s into the future. The gym might be closing, but the spirit will never die.