U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : Andrade Quit Football and Got a Real Lift

You could say that Michael Andrade was shamed into taking up weightlifting, but it was not by a bully who kicked sand in his face.

Andrade’s antagonists did worse.

They ignored him.

There he was, on the football field at Royal High, trying his hardest. And what position did it earn him?

Left out.

“I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, and no one would tell me,” said Andrade, who graduated from Royal in 1989.

So Andrade turned to something he did well naturally: lifting weights.

As a sophomore, before training, he had been able to squat-lift 300 pounds. He did it for fun back then. But his senior year, after football, he was far more intense about it.

Funny, but when he hoisted the heavy metal, the anger and depression that weighed on him seemed to lift, too.

“I had a really, really terrible football season,” said Andrade, who had hoped to play in college. “Lifting made me feel better about myself.”

A year later, representing Moorpark College, Andrade placed third in the 75-kilogram (165 1/4 pound) class in the collegiate championships at Stanford.

“That’s when I decided to get really serious,” he said.

About lifting and about school. To Andrade, somehow the two became linked.

He went on to Cal Lutheran, where he completed five consecutive semesters on the Dean’s list.

“Being competitive in weightlifting made me stay in school,” Andrade said. “I knew if I started freaking out at school I couldn’t lift.”

And he wanted to lift. Bad.

School, Andrade said, “taught me a lot about dedication and commitment.”

Lifting, in the meantime, “taught me who my friends were.”

They were a select few. He simply didn’t have time to play around.

Andrade is 22 years old. He has graduated from Cal Lutheran with a degree in business administration. He is thinking of going back to pursue another in mathematics.

At the national weightlifting championships earlier this year, Andrade placed second in the 91-kilogram class.

He was a relative newcomer on the national scene, but he was rising fast.

“This is really a great experience for me,” he said prior to the Olympic Festival competition. “I really have nothing to lose by being here.”

On Monday, he felt differently. He felt depressed. This time, the culprit wasn’t football.

Andrade, who lives in Woodland Hills, won a bronze medal in the 99-kilogram (218 1/4 pound) class at the Olympic Festival.

However, he did not accomplish any of his goals.

His total for the snatch and clean and jerk--282.5 kilograms, or 622 3/4 pounds--was 27 1/2 pounds less than his best in competition.

“I managed to embarrass myself,” he said. “I’ve done better in training many, many times. What a waste of time.”

Of particular frustration was his failure to snatch 130 kilograms (286 1/2 pounds) in two attempts. “I never miss that twice,” he said.

Well, almost never. As the bar slipped from his grip, Andrade’s face bore an expression of bewilderment.

“When it passed my face (on its way to the floor) I was like, ‘What happened?’ ” he said.

The winner of the competition, Joel Lackey of Marietta, Ga., lifted a total of 325 kilograms, or 716 1/4 pounds. He is 25 years old--prime-time for a lifter--outweighs Andrade by more than 20 pounds, and is far more experienced.

Then again, winning was never Andrade’s goal.

“I wasn’t worried about placing, or winning a medal or any of that,” he said.

All he wanted was to do his best. Just as he used to do on the football field.

Only this time, the person he was most out to please was himself.