Greenville’s ‘Iron Jackets’ program brings energy to newly renovated weight room
By Austin Chastain | on January 14, 2022
GREENVILLE — As the clock rolls around to 11:38 a.m., Greenville High School students roll into the weight room to get ready for their most energetic class of the day.
The center of that energy is strength and conditioning coordinator Rick Court. Since his hire last June, Court has wanted to teach and motivate students to push themselves to be their best.
On a cold Tuesday morning in January, students began to file through the double doors and into the weight room complete with new racks fit for bench press, squats, chin-ups and a vast array of exercises.
As the students make their way into their class, Court has a playlist with feel-good songs that both elicit positive emotions and some pump-up vibes — creating an almost vibrant energy to get the class started.
That vibrant energy is what Court said he wanted to create when he started at Greenville — he had a vision of community.
“I just wanted to make sure that everybody was coming together, to come in the right direction and understand that to have success in anything,” Court said. “There’s got to be a certain level of commitment. That was basically the goal of bringing everybody together was strength training is the one thing that in specifically, athletics, where there’s a common denominator, you’ve got a football coach, a basketball coach or softball coach or track coach, you have a strength conditioning program.
“That’s the one place where everybody is going to gather at some point during the day, the week, the month, so I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that everything was equally as important.”
Court works with Ryan Vellanti, a new hire in the district after 20 years at Lakeview, to teach strength classes and serve on the Yellow Jackets’ football coaching staff, the combination of the two creates a competitive and energetic atmosphere in the weight room.
With Court’s background in working with NCAA Division I athletes, Vellanti said he learns more and more every day about working in a weight-training program. Co-teaching has had its benefits, too, with Vellanti handling the day-to-day teaching duties with managing grading and attendance while Court handles the majority of the training programming.
In the partnership, the pair work together to ensure the language used is all the same to make it easier if a situation arises where one or the other is not able to be in class on a given day.
“We can just keep everything rolling just like as if both of us were there,” Vellanti said. “If I have to be gone a day or he has to be gone, nothing changes. We, you know, everything’s in place. Whatever day that workout is we just keep rolling with everybody.”
The strength and conditioning program has exploded with the renovation of the new weight room, along with Court and Vellanti joining the staff.
When Court joined the staff, he was part of starting the summer weight training program for varsity athletes, primarily. Through some recruiting on Court’s part on the sidelines of practices and word of mouth of the student-athletes with their friends, more students were waking up early in the morning to lift.
There were students of all sports, ages and disciplines who were interested in training — even the choir instructor, Andrew Samson, wanted his students to train.
“That’s what my vision was, bringing everybody together,” Court said. “There were 12th-graders in the room, there were sixth-graders in the room and everyone in between. All sports from cross country, to football, to tennis, to basketball — it’s been an unbelievable success so far and I only see it growing.”
The craziest part of the transition of not only moving into Court’s program and Vellanti’s education was moving into the actual weight room itself.
Renovations in the weight room weren’t completed until last October, Court said. In the meantime, however, the “Iron Jackets” utilized the end zone facility at Legacy Field and made a makeshift “home” in the home locker room. Once fall sports started in August, the program moved to the visitor’s locker room and one more move up to the wrestling loft before finally making the weight room its final home.
“It was fun — we had to figure out ways to get creative and be productive at the same time,” Court said. “I wanted to make sure that we were able to create something where the kids wanted to be. … I wanted to make sure that there was an energy and a fun atmosphere. I was upfront and said, ‘Hey, this isn’t the most ideal situation — let’s take the elephant in the room.’ There are weights, there are bars and we’re going to do the best job we can and if we all give great effort, we can start seeing results.”
There have been results in physical progress and attitudes in the weight room. With the vibrant energy, few — if any — students are late to weightlifting class and the atmosphere in the room is exciting.
Yellow Jackets senior wrestler Camden Beyer said the program has been beneficial for him to improve his strength and speed on the mat but will also help him prepare for life after graduation.
“I’m planning on going into the Army after high school,” Beyer said. “(The class) definitely helps me out for (physical training), it keeps me in good shape.”
Beyer added he loves working with Court and Vellanti on a daily basis.
“The energy is great,” Beyer said. “They help keep me pumped up. … (Lifting and training is) definitely something I want to continue.”
From an education standpoint, Vellanti said it is a fun place and atmosphere to work. Above all, Vellanti said he is excited to help student-athlete learn and turn that learning into wins for the athletes and create new and healthy habits for non-athletes.
“Our whole goal is to help every sports program start winning,” Vellanti said. “That’s the goal of the class for the athletes in it to get stronger, faster. Hopefully, turn programs around maybe that haven’t been winning, hopefully, we can create a positive learning environment for every sport. Even for kids who aren’t into sports, just for those non-athletes that are in the class to be a part of something.
“Hopefully, we can make their experience at Greenville even more positive.”