NEWPORT BEACH : High School Gets New Weight Room

Matt Evans tried a few pull downs while Mike De Revere bench-pressed and the rest of the Sea Kings football team lifted weights in Corona del Mar High School’s new weight room last week.

The state-of-the-art weight room, completely furnished and built without a single penny from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, has football players and coaches ecstatic.

Every piece of equipment is new. Even the fresh paint and gray carpet with the Sea Kings logo in the middle still smell new. And players say a stereo system and air conditioning make working out enjoyable.

A group of six fathers, two of whom don’t have children attending the school, signed promissory notes in March at a local bank guaranteeing a $300,000 loan that paid for the weight room and meeting facility, said one of the fathers, John Walz.

The facility will be finished by Sept. 13, when the school’s football boosters, the Touchdown Club, hold an open house to raise the money to repay the loan, Walz said. Many parents already have donated a combined $100,000 toward that goal.

Corona del Mar High was built in the early 1960s without a weight-training room.

“We . . . think that the kids need (the weight room) to be competitive and have a better chance to go on to college or professional football,” Walz said. “That’s why we did it . . . pure and simple.”

The weight room was designed to blend with the architecture of the school’s Olympic-size pool, which was built two years ago and partially paid for by parents.

“This room is a dream from a long time ago,” Coach Dave Holland said. “I wanted one of these in 1971, and this is better than I had imagined. We’re real indebted to a lot of people who were willing to take a (financial) risk during this time.”

Football player Matt Evans, 17, described the room as “better than any health clubs I’ve ever been to. If I was to walk in here as a player on another team--I’d be in awe.”

Between bench-presses, defensive end De Revere, 17, predicted that the weight-training room would “help the team get stronger.”

“I’m glad that all the parents are looking out for their kids,” De Revere said.