Wide-eyed and smiles brimming, the emotion for the Greyhound football players on Monday morning was probably summed up by the yelling of assistant head coach and director of strength and performance Taylor Williams.
“It’s like Christmas morning!” But instead of presents under a tree, the Greyhounds players walked into a completely overhauled weight room, formally known as the Womack Performance Center.
Like a shot of an energy drink in the early morning hours, Monday’s unveiling was well-timed for Jones County coming away from last week’s dead week. On Aug. 7, JCHS will host Jasper County in a preseason scrimmage.
“A lot of what we’re doing right now is building momentum, we’ve been working hard for a while, so to come back from dead week and into a new weight room, that just catapult’s your momentum shift,” Greyhounds head coach Justin Montgomery said. “We’ve got to maximize our momentum shift through the end of July and into August.”
Working out in a facility that is also utilized by student-athletes in other sports stands to shift that focus into overdrive, and it’s one that has visions of beyond what happens on the field of play for Jones County.
“It’s a huge day for Jones County, Coach Williams and I have been talking about the possibilities and potential of the Jones County Schools being the premiere school system in middle Georgia,” Montgomery said. “It’s untapped territory, and I think that the bones are there.”
Monday morning was the culmination of a desire that began last year among Montgomery and Williams, who after sharing their vision with the Jones County Board of Education were approved to move ahead.
From there, Williams got to work, not only utilizing contacts from the standpoint of Pendlum Performance, who took charge of the redone weight room, but also from his previous coaching stop in Gainesville. The Red Elephants themselves had recently overhauled their weight room, one that’s similar in size to the one at Jones County.
“It was not as big of space as you thought that you’d have to have,” Montgomery said. “We looked at that and said, ‘We could have the same things here.’” One part of the new-look weight room is a common branding look throughout incorporating the “JC” logo.
But the new weight room is more than just window dressing. Flooring has been upgraded, thus removing old wooden platforms where heavy weightlifting takes place. Racks are now bolted into the ground, double racks are fortified to offer more functionality, and attachments are added to use with barbells. In addition, different bars are now in place for movement workouts with other add-ons being an increase in dumbbells to go with the addition of bars, chains, dip bars and boxes to utilize during lifts.
The previous weights from the weight room will still be used, having now been moved to the weight-lifting footprint behind the gymnasium bleachers for more students to be able to utilize, according to video posted by the Jones County Schools on social media.
“It’s a symbol and monumental moment for Jones County. It’s the best facility in the state if you ask me. It’s a point of pride for Jones County, where we’re able to mold young men and women to workhard and have strong minds and bodies,” Montgomery said. “That’s our work ethic. We’re a hard-working blue-collar community and I think that room represents who we are as our identity, and it’ll also set a standard to the rest of the growth that’ll take place in Jones County.
“It’s a symbol of where we’re headed and it fires me up to talk in here every day.”
