Gym Candy by Carl Deuker Page A

could see changes he'd made. Banners with the words BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER were plastered over all the walls. So were posters from the Super Bowl and the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl.
    That wasn't the only change. As Carlson walked us through the room, you could tell how much thought he'd given to everything. The equipment was the same—an aging Smith machine and lots of free weights—but now it was arranged into stations all around the room. On the wall behind each station, Carlson had mounted photos showing what lift we were to do and how we were to do it. Below the photos was a clipboard where we were to write down the weight we'd lifted and the repetitions we'd done.
    After he'd explained all the stations, Carlson faced us. "I heard Coach Downs in here every day barking at you guys. But I'm not checking on anybody. I've got my job to do out there in the school; you've got your job to do in here. I'll just say this. You saw Rogers; you saw Pasco. It was pretty exciting for them, playing for a championship, TV cameras rolling, stadium rocking, college recruiters watching every down. They played that game in December, but those guys got there because of the off-season work they did in the weight room. If you want to experience a championship, then you have to put in a champion's effort. Not one day—every day." He paused. "Last guy out turn off the lights."
    Carlson left the weight room. We stood, looking around, unsure what to do. Middleton spoke up. "You heard the man. Let's get to it."
    You need one guy to spot you during weightlifting. I let Drew and DeShawn work together and partnered up with Middleton. He was stronger than I was by a long shot, but with his easy smile and his easy ways, he didn't make any fuss about having to take weights off and put them back on. And seeing how much he lifted gave me still one more push.
    I worked harder in the weight room than I ever had before. I was so focused on my workout that it wasn't
until it was over that I realized Drager and Clark had never shown up.
    "They quit the team," DeShawn said as we left.
    "What?" I said.
    "Laura Shelly told me this morning. Her older sister Kim is Clark's girlfriend. They're transferring to West Seattle. That's a triple-A school—we won't even play against them next year."

7
    By dinnertime, my shoulders and hamstrings had tightened. I took it as a good sign—I'd never gotten stiff from lifting before, which meant that I really had gone at it harder. I took a hot bath and then stretched out on my bed, punching buttons on the TV remote.
    On one channel was one of those dumb infomercials peddling some health junk. I was about to switch to something else when this really ripped guy held up a bottle of pills and started talking about how they'd changed him from a ninety-pound weakling into a man-monster. The commercial showed before and after photos to prove it. They were crazy photos—probably of two different guys—but they got me thinking about the supplement stores out there. How could they stay in business if everything they sold was useless? I was committed to the weight room, one hundred percent. And I wasn't going to use steroids like number 50 and the other Foothill guys probably did. But if there were legal things out there that could make me stronger, it would be stupid not to take them.
    Saturday morning I drove to the supplement store at University Village. I found an entire aisle filled with bottles promising muscle and weight gain. I floundered around until one of the clerks, a tall guy with a blond ponytail, came over. "You looking to bulk up?"
    "I'm starting to lift weights seriously," I said, "and I was looking for—"
    "You were looking for this," he said, holding up a bundled package of a protein powder with vitamin and mineral supplements. "You take all these and lift weights, and I promise you fantastic results."
    I looked at the price on the package. "It's pretty expensive," I said.
    "Nothing