Jon Collum, a teacher at BHS who teaches students about weight lifting, technique to it, and flexibility. Jon Collum came to Baldwin three years ago, following his kids Cami and Colton as they transferred from Gardner. Jon had taught at Gardner originally for twenty one years, and had felt there was some change needed. Jon had originally wanted to be a physical therapist but it just wasn’t right, so he chose the route he still walks today. Jon has taught weights for years, helping students get past insecurities and pushing their limits to become better. Jon made it his goal to get students to stop saying “I can’t,” and to say “I can.”
Q: What got you into weights itself?
“Well, the strength and conditioning part, I’ve done even throughout my own personal career, even throughout high school athletics, through college athletics, so it’s been like a lifestyle for me, but in the coaching aspect, I mean I’ve coached multiple different sports so trainings always just been apart of that, but a little more specific for me these past three years because I’m in a classroom doing it.”
Q: What got you into teaching weights?
“Originally I’d gone to college to be a physical therapist, and I enjoyed working with athletes a lot but I just didn’t feel like I was hitting my purpose. So then I changed my major to kinesiology, which is teaching in physical education, and did a couple relapses, did a couple classes, and just kind of fell in love with it.”
Q: Why did you choose to teach at Baldwin?
“It was just time for me to have a change, I’ve been in Gardner for twenty-one years, Colton originally came here first, then Cami transferred. It was an opportunity for something different, just career wise, which I was ready for, but an opportunity to be with my kids.”
Q: Do you attend lifting competitions?
“No, I’ve never lifted competitively, I had three main injuries from highschool through college which kept me from peaking out athletically. Though, that is kind of why I originally started into physical therapy because you need a tough mental discipline to go through rehab and that part is what put me on the mental discipline on how I train because I wasn’t really training to compete, I was training to come back. That was just a different mindset I had.”
Q: Do you like teaching weights?
“Yeah, I absolutely love it! I like it because you actually see the results, like in some classes the results are abstract, like you think you have a concept or you think you understand something. In weights, you see somebody improve like ‘hey I used to bench press 100 pounds now I can do 125 pounds.’ You can see the physical result, I love that part. I love the part about being with kids and being able to motivate them, trying to help them overcome that insecurity or fears, or ‘I can’ts’ and saying ‘yeah I can,’ you just have to figure out how.”
Q: Do you teach students outside of school?
“Man I have, for a long time, I’ve done multiple club sports, I did after school programs, I’ve done summer school programs, I worked a couple summers at the Johnson County community college in their youth programs, so yeah I’ve done a variety of things in twenty six years.”
Q: Do you plan to continue teaching weights at Baldwin?
“I plan to long as they’ll have me here at Baldwin City High School.”
Q: What’s your best lift, like best thing you can do or the max weight?
“If I could pick one whole body lift, it would probably be the hexbar deadlift, probably because you’re putting your whole body. Second to that I really love pull-ups, even if it doesn’t quite incorporate the whole body lift that shows a lot of different strengths.”
Q: What’s your favorite thing to teach?
“My favorite thing to teach students is the ‘I cans’. Two of my least favorite words are the ‘I can’ts’ so really it’s teaching kids you’re not allowed to say that. Rather you can say ‘I can get better at that, I need to keep working on that, can you show me?’ Though, what I really mean is that you can overcome obstacles, you just need to figure out how to do it.”
Q: Were you inspired to do weights or teach weights?
“There was a guy that worked with me when I was in college, right after my first knee surgery, that just in a really good way had no empathy. I mean he just approached it as a process and it created a mindset for me with mental discipline that’s required with doing something daily, that really isn’t fun. Like you’re constantly making your body tired, but you learn to embrace that and eventually end up liking that part.”