Tag Archives: Awards Program

Athlete of the Year

by Chad Ullom

Al Myers (left) and Larry Traub (middle) - Athletes of the Year.

The final yearly recognition award that was given this year was our Athlete of the Year. This is the “MVP” of the USAWA.  Ironically, the winner and runner-up for the Athlete of the Year were both present and finished in the same order the next day! I wonder if that’s ever happened?!

Athlete of Year-Al Myers
Runner up-Larry Traub

Larry, a relative newcomer to the USAWA, has shown he will be a force to be reckoned with! At this point, Larry is still learning most of the lifts. With just a couple of pointers this year, he added 20 lbs onto his 1 arm clean and jerk! He’s nearly impossible to beat now with his pulling, pressing and squatting power. Give him some time to get more comfortable with more lifts and look out! Larry is the defending national champion and placed 2nd this year. He repeated his victory at the Monster garage meet. Hopefully we’ll see Larry in October for his first world championships. I’m sure we will open some eyes!

The winner of the athlete of the year is Al Myers. I can’t imagine that we had a more active lifter than Al in 2011. He competed in 12 Usawa/Iawa meets, not including record days!  Not only that, there were several others that he sat out to help, or that number would have been much higher. Here’s a quick rundown of 2011 of Al’s overall placings:

Dino Strength challenge-1st place
Grip Championship-1st
Club Challenge-1st place team Dino
Deanna-2nd
Goddard postal (iawa)-1st place team, best overall lifter
Eastern Postal-1st
Heavy lift nationals-2nd
Team Nationals-1st place team Dino
Gold cup(iawa)-world record DL with daughter Emily
Strongman championships-1st
Delaware open-1st
Iawa World Championships, Australia -2nd overall.

That is quite a list! Most of us could go a few years and not be able to put that type of resume together! Al is a humble guy, you won’t see him point out his accomplishments. If I’m not mistaken, he currently sits 3rd all time on the USAWA record list and with that type of activity, it won’t be long before he’s on top. He is an increbible lifter and has been a great teammate, mentor, coach, travel buddy and hetero life partner to me:). Congratulations Al!

Courage Award

by Al Myers

Dave Glasgow being awarded the Runnerup Courage Award at the USAWA Nationals (center). He was presented the award by Al Myers (left) and Denny Habecker (right). Missing from this picture is the USAWA Courage Award winner Dale Friesz.

The USAWA Courage Award goes to a lifter who “shows the courage to overcome an obstacle in order to return to competition.  This may be a comeback from an injury, or just having to deal with difficult personal issues but still shows the courage to compete in the USAWA”.  That is the way it is defined in the awards program information letter.  It might as well just say ” be like DALE FRIESZ” instead.   Dale takes courage to the extreme, and continues to lift weights when most (make that ALL) would have quit if they were in his situation.   I wasn’t “for sure” if Dale would be able to make it to this years Nationals, but he didn’t let me or the USAWA down on this.  Not only did he make the flight to Vegas, but he lifted in the meet and showed tremendous effort in all the days events.  He is a true warrior – and very, very deserving of this award.  It is only appropriate that he has now won it THREE YEARS IN A ROW!! That’s simply amazing, and is the only person to have won the same award every year since the award program has been in place.  The Courage Award winners were:

WINNER – DALE FRIESZ

RUNNERUP – DAVE GLASGOW

Dave Glasgow was a very fitting runner up to Dale.  Dave has had some physical difficulties as well this year (surgery on his arm), but most wouldn’t know about it.  Dave’s not one to make an issue of something like that.  It would have been easy for him to “take some time off” to milk his injury, but it didn’t seem to slow him down at all!  As soon as possible he was back on the lifting platform!! 

CONGRATS to Dale and Dave for winning this year’s COURAGE AWARD!

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