RONAN — Ronan gave its student athletes a chance to define themselves this past weekend as part of a motivational seminar from the school’s contracted weight training program, Bigger  Faster Stronger.

In addition to the weight training clinic the Utah based company gives every year, Ronan schools signed up for the character-education seminar for the first time since 2004, to help unite Ronan athletes who have been thrust into a transitional phase, said Ronan Middle School Physical Education teacher and Ronan varsity girls’ head track and field coach Crystal Pitts.

“It’s just trying to get unification in our school system with our weight training program using another segment that talks about team goals,” Pitts said. “We thought we have a bunch of young kids and a bunch of turnovers in our coaching staff. We thought it was a good time to bring them back.”

The BFS program, which spent Thursday training more than 200 athletes from the middle school and high school on key lifts and speed drills, was hired to spend a little extra time with the school’s different sports teams.

The aim was to set goals as teams and then as a school. The program is called “Be-An- 11.” 

BFS coach Evan Ayres spoke to the Ronan athletes in the Ronan Event Center about what it means to be a Chief or Maiden and the program’s five axioms for success, from establishing team goals to helping fellow teammates reach their goals in “mind, body and spirit.”

The burden of choosing team goals for success in athletics, school and within the community was put on the students for a reason, Ayres told them.

“You nurture what you create,” he said. “If you’re told what to do it isn’t going to happen. If you come up with it yourself, it’s yours.”

Each of Ronan’s teams was asked to come up with a measurable goal for the upcoming season, whether it be a record or playoff accomplishment. They were also asked to come up with an academic goal and a way to give back to the community.

Many teams said they hoped for a state or divisional championship and held themselves to accumulative GPAs from a 2.8 to a 3.2.

Finally, everything from park cleanups to food drives were designated as possible ways to give back to a community that had provided the athletes with so much opportunity.

Eleven steps to accomplishing these goals were examined by students and coaches before the teams were asked to come up with a team creed.

From there, one student was chosen to formulate the school creed into a single Ronan athletic creed by way of a contest.

The test was a wall-sit, an exercise where one sits with their back to the wall with legs at a 90-degree angle.

But it wasn’t just any wall sit, it was a Be-An-11 wall sit, where students must raise their hands and arms behind their heads, raise their hips off the wall and go to their tippy toes.

The winner of the difficult test was freshman Marcus Hungerford, who will mesh all of the creeds into one by the end of this week, Pitts said.

Hungerford held in for 3:47.

Later that day Ronan Middle School sixth grader Brittney Oschmann set the Ronan record for the event with 4:01, a promising sign for the future of Ronan athletics.

The program received a positive response from students and coaches alike, Pitts said.

Sports editor’s note: Ronan is invited to submit its new athletic creed for publication in the Leader as is any other Lake County school that has established one.