Pat Gallagher falters at states in lower weight class but still ranks as county's top lifter.
By JAMAL THALJI
Published June 6, 2003
NEW PORT RICHEY - Pat Gallagher sacrificed much this season to compete for a state title.
About 18 pounds.
The Gulf senior's natural weight is 135. But when the county's 119-pound weight class champion stepped on the scales at April's Class A state weightlifting meet, Gallagher weighed 117.
"I didn't think it was very healthy," he said. "But I figured hopefully it would be worth it if I got first in the state. But it didn't happen."
The Times Pasco County Weightlifter of the Year fell 5 pounds short of his goal.
Gallagher finished the bench press competition with a lift of 225 pounds. That left him 10 pounds ahead of Pierson Taylor's Aaron Chavez when the clean and jerk began. Gallagher cleared his lift at 175. Then came his second attempt.
"I brought it up and when I went to jerk it my foot slipped on the platform and the weight came down," he said.
Gallagher tried to recover on his third attempt, lifting 185 pounds. But Chavez responded with the unexpected: a personal-best 200. "He's never done that before," Gallagher said.
Yet Gallagher still finished the state runnerup at 119, won his weight class at the Sunshine Athletic Conference meet and was named SAC lifter of the year.
So his sacrifice wasn't all for naught.
"In the beginning of the season before it started I was about 135 and I had to come down to 119," he said. "That was pretty hard when you have to cut all that weight because you really don't have any strength left to lift anymore. You can't eat or drink anything a couple of days before a meet."
Gallagher could have competed at his natural weight class, but not for a state title.
"I could have stayed at that weight," he said. "But I wouldn't be in second place, that's for sure."
Said coach Keith Newton: "He had to be on top of his weight every single meet. If he cheated bad on the weekends he paid for it on Monday or Tuesday. But he learned to control it. It's hard for anybody to do that over that period of time, but he made up his mind that he was going to do it."
But to lose that weight, and keep it off, required more than hours in the weight room.
"I wake up before school at 6 a.m and put on 10 sweatshirts and run 5 or 6 miles," Gallagher said. "Third period I haveweightlifting class, and I go out and run the whole time. I run after school, before dinner and before I went to sleep."
Why? Because to Gallagher weightlifting wasn't just a diversion between sports, or a way to stay in shape. The 5-foot-8 senior spent four years on the golf team and three on the wrestling team. But to him, weightlifting was his true sport.
"Pat's one of those kids who's a true weightlifter," Newton said. "That is his main sport, his main hobby.
"He's really earned his way, from the time he was a tiny 98-pound freshman to being a two-time all-conference selection and a two-time state place winner, and that took a lot of hard work to go from where he was."
Now Gallagher, an All-SAC academic team pick, is headed to Gulf Coast University. He hopes to continue his weight training with a powerlifting team. The looks he gets from people when he bench presses are too good to give up.
"Most people when they look at you they don't think anything of you," he said. "But when I'm done with my first set they're looking at me like I'm crazy."
