Dylan Ledahl is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Trevor G. Browne High School for AZPreps365.com

Weight rooms for athletic teams in high school are one of the most important keys to success for a team. They are where athletes will improve their strength and power, as well as reduce their risk of injury.

Over a decade ago, Manuel Calderon, now the athletic director at Trevor G. Browne, applied to be the district athletic director in the Phoenix region. Calderon said he believes he got the position because of the way he answered the question, “If you were to get this position, what would you do to help schools athletic programs?”

“The way we do weight rooms isn’t right,” Calderon said. “I would make sure that the smaller schools get the same equipment as the bigger schools, as [smaller schools] have teams just like [bigger schools].”

In his time as the district athletic director, Calderon was able to help over 15 high schools upgrade their weight room facilities.

Calderon ended up getting the position and the first thing he did was visit several different schools to look at two things: If they had enough equipment, and if the athletic programs were taking care of what they had.

If the schools didn’t have enough equipment, he would get them multiple bench-press racks, squat racks and dumbbells. There were instances where Calderon would go to a school and could tell if the athletic teams or school didn’t take care of their equipment.

“I remember going to Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix and I just remember my heart aching,” Calderon said. “The little bit of the weight room there was, it was just a mess, and I knew the staff members didn’t take pride in their work.”

Calderon is a big believer in doing the little things right.

“Every time I helped a school, I told them to take good care of their new equipment,” Calderon said. “I told them to do the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.”

The first school was Trevor G. Browne, because Calderon went to a weightlifting competition there and realized that there were not many weights.

Weight rooms are an expensive thing to give high schools, but for Calderon, it wasn’t a problem.

“As the district athletic director, I had around a million dollar per year budget,” Calderon said. “I knew the money was there to help the schools get weight rooms, it was just about being strategic with the money.”

Calderon has been worked many jobs. He has been a principal at a both a big high school and a small high school, the district athletic director, and has been the athletic director at Trevor G. Browne for the last year and a half.

He took over the athletic director position at Browne after David Provost, who had been the athletic director for 14 years. Stephanie Streeter, the principal at Browne, has been there for over 50 years. Streeter remembers when the idea came about to get Browne a new weight room.

“When Mr. Provost was the athletic director, he and the district office worked on renovating the weight room,” Streeter said. “All of the renovations were approved by Calderon.”

The current football head coach, Francisco Rangel, wasn’t the head coach when the renovations were done. But when he first got to Browne, he had high praise for the weight room.

“Compared to other places I’ve coached, the size alone is the best I’ve seen,” Rangel said. “Other weight rooms have been a bit more customized and specialized with weights and having logos everywhere, but I think everyone would agree they’d rather have the space.”

Calderon helped all of these schools because he felt like it was his responsibility to do so.

“It warms my heart that I was able to help out all of these schools,” Calderon said. “I was blessed to have coaches and role models in my life go above their call of duty to help others out. I felt it was my time and place to do the same as the district athletic director.”