Doug Furnas: super athlete
12 October 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I had occasion the other day to sort though some old photos and came across some of uber-athlete Doug Furnas in his powerlifting prime. I was fortunate enough to know and work with him as athletic assistant on a number of occasions. When a man reaches Furnas level of proficiency you dont coach him in competition you assist him. My most memorable times working with Doug occurred when I assisted him at two successive powerlifting competitions, one on the island of Maui and the next in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1986. Doug became the first powerlifter in history to total 2400 twice and this occurred at these two competitions. He was also by far the lightest in bodyweight to hit 2400. He weighed 270-pounds at the time and was so lean he had veins running across his abdominal and deltoids. His thighs taped 35-inches when he squatted 986, bench pressed 600 and deadlifted 826 wearing supportive gear laughable by todays standards. My acquaintance with Doug grew into a friendship over time but started off slow and cautious. He was intense, he was quiet and wary; he never raised his voice and had the gravitas and demeanor of a tank squadron commander. I got to know him through my work with Incredible Ed Coan. The two men were great friends and would always lift at the same two competitions: the national championships held in the summer and the world championships held in November. Both men usually lifted on the same day and since both lifted approximately the same weights, they would warm-up together. I became the air traffic controller/coach whose job it was to lend clarity and direction to the backstage madhouse of national and international competition.
Ed would always have a squad of Chicago bruisers surrounding him from Quads gym: the great late Tom Milanovich and partner Dave at the epicenter, then concentric circles of entourage that would help in whatever way was needed. Ed chose me to be the stage director and I dictated the timing of the critical backstage warm-ups. A lifter at this level might need as many as eight warm-ups before walking onstage to squat 940 on his opening attempt. Warm up too early or too late and six months of training would be jeopardized. When working with the very best in the world in big time competition the pressure and tension at times borders on unbearableto complicate the already complicated I would simultaneously be handling world champion and my long time training partner Mark Chaillet. I developed a system based on the number of warm-up attempts needed divided into the minutes remaining before the start of competition: I would direct three squads of assistants, each squad charged with loading the next poundage for either Ed, Doug or Mark. We wrap them, belt them, suits up, suits down, and keep away all the well-wishers, glad-handers and backstage interlopers. Wed make sure they were hydrated, kept calm and stress free. They wanted to be isolated and told when it was time to take an attempt. During the actual competition I would advise on subsequent attempts and make sure the correct weight for the next attempt was turned in to the meet expeditor. Ed really liked the way I always got him onstage at just the right time without any drama or rushing. Doug liked it also and soon I was stage directing both men - plus my Homey Chaillet: three of greatest in the world all at the same time. It was a nail-biting, teeth-grinding, ulcer-inducing adventure but I was blessed and worked with all three when they posted their all-time best-ever-competitive performances.
When I first encountered Doug Furnas in the mid-eighties he was already an athletic legendBorn in rural Oklahoma on a farm, he had great genetics and was exposed to brutally hard work from a very young age. He told me in a later interview. From the time I was 9 or 10, my younger brother and I would run alongside the truck while it rolled along. My brother and I were too small to handle the 100-pound hay bales by ourselves so the two of us would team up to toss the 100-pound bales into the moving truck. Run, lift, toss, run, lift, tossfor hours at a time. And this was just one of the many difficult physical farm tasks and chores the two youngsters were required to perform on a daily basis. On the farm we got up at dawn and fed the animals before school. We had a saying, the animals always ate before we did. Athletics came natural to the Furnas brothers, While we were wrestling hay bales, roping cattle and riding horses, our friends our age were playing T-ball we were a lot more physical and evolved when it came time to participate in organized sports. Things got even more physical when the Furnas clan began entering competitive rodeo events as a family. Kids and parents would compete. We would travel to different rodeos and the idea was to generate enough money to cover the entry fee, pay for hotel, food and gas and maybe even have a little left over. Hardly a casual undertaking, this early exposure to performing in front of large crowds taught Doug to rise to the competitive occasion and from an early age he learned to come through in a competitive clutch situation. Like every other sport he participated in, he excelled.
The Furnas clan drove all over the southwest, regulars on the competitive rodeo circuit. Doug gave serious consideration to becoming a professional rodeo rider. One of my young buddies went on to become a world rodeo champion and at one point I thought seriously about pursuing rodeo as a profession. Things took a terrible turn. The family was involved in a deadly auto accident, hit head-on by a drunk driver coming in the opposite direction as they crested a hill. Doug was severely hurt and almost died. From that point forward events were referred to as before the accident or after the accident. It took two years for him to fully recover. He was in a body cast. I busted my legs, broke my back and was nearly killed. I was so broken and shattered that I missed a year of school. When Doug was able to resume school he was a year behind and now in the same class as his younger brother. His recuperation took years and during this time he was introduced to weight training though his physical therapy process. I viewed weight training as a way to get my life back together. It healed me and strengthened me and eventually I feel in love with lifting. He got back to normal and morphed into paranormal. He and his brother led their high school football team to a state title and both decided to attend the same small local junior college. Things clicked and his team became a powerhouse. We won the junior college national championship. Doug related in his matter-of-fact tone. The brothers sorted through dozens of college scholarship offers and decided that they would only attend a college that offered both of them a full-ride scholarship. Tennessee (under Johnny Majors) offered both brothers the package they wanted.
Doug ended up as the starting fullback on the same squad as Olympic gold medal sprinter and NFL wide receiver Willie Gault and NFL all-time hall of fame immortal Reggie White. Tennessee lost in the last ten seconds of Orange Bowl before 70,000 and millions more watching on TV on New Years Day. It was one of the best days and worst days of my athletic career. A punishing runner, Furnas had a 4.6 forty-yard dash, a 36-inch vertical leap, could do the full splits, bench press 450 and squat 775. He decided to try his hand at professional football but the experience left a bitter taste in his mouth. Doug made the Denver Broncos but a training camp injury upset his career plans. Good enough to stay on the payroll but not able to play, he spent an unhappy year on injured reserved before giving up entirely on the pro football dream. He had a personality conflict with head coach Dan Reeves and was homesick. He decided to return home and turn his full attention to another sport he had never had an opportunity to pursue: powerlifting. A hall of fame powerlifter, Dennis Wright, lived in his area and Doug asked if Dennis would show him the ropes and coach him. Wright agreed and the rest, as they say, it history. Being the athletic protg that he was, within a year of commencing powerlifting he had set his first world record. Within 18 months he captured his 1st national title. Within three years he would become a power legend and by year four he was retired. Then he moved on to a career in professional wrestling.
More on Doug tomorrow
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