USAWA

By Eric Todd

Last month, I hosted the Heavy Lift Championship.  The turnout was good, but as always when leading up to an event that I am promoting, participation in it concerns me.  So, daily I check the mail in eager anticipation of a new entry or two.  Weeks before this championship, I was both surprised and excited to recieve an entry form into the meet from Dave Hahn from Kansas.

I had met Dave previously on two different occasions.  The first time was in 2014 at the Heavy Lift Championships promoted by Al Myers in Holland, KS.  Dave was a competitor at that meet.The second time was in 2015 with my first effort at promoting the Heavy Lift Championship when Dave surprised us by coming out with a few members of his family to spectate the lifting.

This time around, Dave was competing again, and I had more opportunity to visit with him and really pay notice to his lifting.  It became quite evident to me that Dave is quite an exceptional individual.  It was those observations that inspired me to dig in with Dave a little deeper and write this article.

Dave rolled into the meet early, and came with an entourage of family members.  We again exchanged pleasantries.  Dave impressed me as a very unassuming individual, and was rather soft spoken in nature.  Unassuming, that is until it was time to move iron.  There was more than once when I wondered if Dave was paying attention, or if he was going to open too heavy.  Several lifters might be done lifting before Dave even called his opener.  However, I was wrong.  Dave knew exactly what he was doing; he was going BIG.  It also became evident that the rest of us were all going to have to take care that this 81 year old 150 pound man did not bypass us in points and beat us on the podium.  Well, that is exactly what he did, in securing runner up rights at the 2018 Heavy Lift Championship.  Then, back to his unassuming ways, Dave quietly thanked me and said he had no idea he would be recieving such a nice award when he signed up for the competition.

Dave has been lifting for many moons.  In more exact terms 66 years.  He began his affair with the iron at the age of 15 when he started lifing at the old YMCA in downtown Kansas City.  He first competed at the age of 18 at an event called “Mr. Kansas City.”  Dave competed in the “Mr. High School Physique” portion along with the bench press and curl competitions.  He won both the physique and curl portions of the event. Another contest that Dave took part in  in that first year of competing was called “Heart of America Physique Festival”.  It was also in Kansas City.  This festival had an event in which the competitors would be challenged to squat 125 pounds over their bodyweight for as many repetitions as they could muster (sidebar-this sounds like an absolute HOOT!) Dave won this contest by sqautting 325 for 24 reps.  He went on to win it again the next year by squatting 330 for 30 reps.

It was in 1960 that Dave first met Bill Clark, founder of the USAWA, when Dave entered his first Olympic style weightlifting meet at the Missouri State Penitentiary.  Dave continued lifting in the Missouri Valley AAU, which from my understanding was the direct precursor the the USAWA.  They would do the Oly lifting, but include some odd-lifts among their competitions.  In the Missouri Valley competitions, Dave’s best lifts were 255 in the press, 190 in the snatch, and 270 on the clean and jerk, done in the split style.  Dave graced the platform with many of the area’s great lifters of the time including Charlie Scott, Wilbur Miller, Ken McClain, Gary Cleveland, Jim Ellis, Bill Fellows, Wayne Jackson, Wayne Gardner, Art Tarwater, Walt Zuk and Homer Lewellen.  Though a couple of those lifters are unfamiliar to your humble author, most I know of from having met them, lifted in meets named for them, reading about them in old “Strength Journals” or on the USAWA news, or through hearing stories.

In reading many of those old “Strength Journals” that Bill Clark wrote, I remember reading about some of those marathon type weekends, where the competitors would compete in a hodge podge of different types of competitions, some being lifting some being from other disciplines.  I even think there may have been bowling in them at times.  Well, as it turns out, Dave particpated in something similar that Clark put on called “Heart of America Power Festival” back in the 60s.  It included a number of different standar and odd-lifts as well as a 100 yard dash.  Dave won the event in ’62 and was 5th in ’63. During the 70’s Dave competed primarily in prison powerlifting meets after powerlifting became it’s own entity.

1987 saw the birth of the USAWA.  It took those odd-lifts that were being contested in the old Missouri Valley, and gave them a home.  Dave Hahn was in the inaugural class of this new organization, along with notable greats such as Bob Burtzloff, Steve Schmidt, and Ed Zercher. In 1991, Dave participated in the Zercher Classic. This was Dave’s first introduction to the chain lifts, and they immediately caught his fancy.  Now, for any of the readers out there who are not familiar with the Zercher Classic, it is 13 different lifts, including 4 chain lifts.  The first year I competed in it, I thought I had crippled myself.  So, it is no wonder Dave took off the next 23 years of competing to recover.

When you do something as long as Dave has done lifting, there are bound to be some changes.  When Dave got started at the old Y, lifters just helped each other out with form and such, but there were no “coaches.”  Now, there are olympic and powerlifting coaches, as well as personal trainers and the availability of online coaching.  Women and youth did not compete.  That was a realm left to men.  One thing that has not changed in lifting, though is the camraderie.  At least that is the impression I have gotten through participation in strongman, Highland Games, and all-round.  Dave said that 8-10 of he and his his confederates from the old time get together for luncheons organized by Ken McClain biannually.

Dave held many records in the old Missouri Valley AAU organization.  One that stood out to me the most are his cheat curl of 255 pounds in the 181 pound class.  To put that in perspective (to me anyhow) my best cheat curl is in the 230 neighborhood, and I am much heavier than Dave was when he hit this.  He also hit a strict curl of 175 pounds.  My best is 20 pounds less at around 80 pounds heavier bodyweight.  In the USAWA record book, Dave holds a hack lift record from that old Zercher meet that has stood for 27 years!  He also holds several, more recent records in the big bar lifts.

Dave is one of the lesser known treasures that we have with us in the USAWA.  The man is an absolute wealth of knowledge and a living legend.  He is living history of our organization and where we came from.  That, and he is one heck of a guy.  He and his family are welcome at my meets anytime!