RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – Dr. Kyle Pierce stood on the International Weightlifting Federation stage, handing out plaques of appreciation to various officials.

With no more plaques in hand, he was told to stay put with another batch on its way.

But the officials came back with just one certificate, and it had Kyle Pierce’s name on it.

Pierce was being inducted into the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame during the organization’s annual congress on Sept. 12 during the IWF World Championships.

“I had no idea that was going to happen in Saudi Arabia,” said Pierce, a weightlifting giant in the state, the country and throughout the world. “I wasn’t really paying attention (as I waited for more plaques to hand out), and they were talking about Hall of Fame awards or whatever, and then they called my name.

“It means a lot, especially since my nomination came from the athlete’s commission on the board. One guy from Ghana that I coached particularly made the push as I understand it, so it’s neat that it would come from the athletes.”

Pierce’s decorated coaching career includes finding and developing three-time U.S. Olympian Kendrick Farris, a Shreveport native who broke the U.S. national record in 2016 by lifting 831 total pounds combined in the snatch and clean and jerk. Farris finished in the top 11 in all three Olympic trips (2008, 2012 and 2016).

Weightlifters Pierce recruited to LSUS have spread out into the professional ranks, reaching heights such as positions with the Cincinnati Reds and the U.S. Olympic Training Center to Michigan Wolverines hockey and the University of Pittsburgh.

But Pierce’s impact is global, whether he’s traveling around the world or bringing the world to LSUS’s USA Weightlifting Development Center.

The U.S. Weightlifting Hall of Famer coached national teams from Ghana and Seychelles in addition to the U.S. at various commonwealth and Olympic games as well as bringing teams and lifters from all over the globe to train at LSUS.

Just in the last 12 months, Pierce has set foot in Saudi Arabia, Burundi, Rwanda, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Cuba to deliver training to coaches and athletes or to present as an academic.

But the Marco Polo of weightlifting almost didn’t pursue the sport, and his journey has taken as much of a circuitous route as his world travels.

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

Growing up in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami, Pierce dreamed of playing for the New York Yankees while taking swings on his dad’s Little League baseball team.

But Pierce wasn’t great – at anything.

The high school football player said he started two games in his career at an actual position, but he could kick – sort of.

“I loved sports, but I was never really that good,” Pierce said. “I wasn’t great at kicking either, but I did walk on at (then Division II) Western Kentucky.

“I got a half scholarship in my fifth and final year.”

Pierce attributed that scholarship to weightlifting and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge to improve.

He read a variety of books on strength and conditioning, nutrition and physiology among other topics.

A pair of Kentucky shot putters transferred to WKU, and Pierce said they introduced him to weightlifting. Pierce started competing in weightlifting competitions while at WKU.

“I was doing the wrong things to try and get more power in my legs – like running long distance or doing leg extensions,” Pierce explained. “I was actually taking power and explosion away from my legs.

“Weightlifting is what made the difference for me. I also always searched for information and trained diligently. I wanted to share what I had learned.”

Pierce was a part of the 1973 Hilltoppers team that won a program record 12 games before falling to Louisiana Tech in the Division II national championship game. That team was inducted into the WKU Hall of Fame this fall.

Armed with a sports recreation degree, Pierce headed back to Hollywood as a janitor at the local recreation center and a substitute teacher.

“I had a putty knife to scrape gum off the machines, and I cleaned the toilets,” Pierce said. “So I started taking classes to get certified as a teacher, and I thought I might as well get a master’s degree.”

One common thread no matter where Pierce was or what job title he had – he started or continued youth weightlifting clubs.

“I just loved the sport and wanted to teach it,” Pierce said.

Pierce finished his masters at Florida International while coaching and teaching at the high school level.

“I loved all the sports science, exercise physiology, motor learning and motor development,” said Pierce, who’s been on a mission to inject science into the coaching and sport world.

After starting his doctorate at LSU under renowned weightlifting researcher Dr. Michael Stone, Pierce switched to Auburn University after the creation of The National Strength Research Center.

“All of these places and people I encountered were great opportunities to learn about sports science, and now I could help train others correctly,” Pierce said. “No more long runs on the beach to build power.”

Pierce ping-ponged from there, serving as Auburn’s assistant women’s track coach, an LSU football graduate assistant, and a Tulane assistant strength coach. One of his more interesting stops was working with the Alabama prison system assisting psychiatric patients with therapeutic exercise.

He was a member of LSU’s 1986 Southeastern Conference Championship team as a 35-year-old offensive line graduate assistant before joining Tulane’s staff as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, teaching classes on top of his athletics work at his various stops.

But $1,000 monthly in New Orleans didn’t pay the bills, and Pierce left athletics to work at General Electric’s corporate fitness center at its aircraft engine plant in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“I hated it,” Pierce recalls. “It was an office job, and it took me away from academics, athletics and the South.

“I wanted to really break into the strength and conditioning world, but people were suspicious of me having a doctorate’s degree and wanting to do that.”

 

FINDING LSUS

Pierce lasted less than two years in Ohio.

LSU mentor Ronald Byrd, a trailblazer in the sports science field in his own right, pointed Pierce to a one-semester appointment at LSUS as the university started its athletics competitions in 1990.

“I was about ready to go work with my friend in his shark fishing business down in Florida, but Byrd told me about a position at LSUS,” Pierce said. “I was involved in the strength program to take Larry Rambin’s spot after he became the athletics director.”

It didn’t take long for Pierce to fire up weightlifting clubs, both for LSUS students and for local youth.

“We hosted our first weightlifting meet in 1991 in the theater, but we didn’t have any weights,” Pierce said. “Louisiana Tech’s Billy Jack Talton and (now ULM’s) Barry Rubin let us borrow weights, so I drove over there to pick them up.”

LSUS quickly became a hotbed for weightlifting, hosting various national collegiate championships, three U.S. National Championships and various youth and Pan-American championships.

Pierce attracted weightlifters from 20 states and four countries to attend LSUS through the years on top of the countless youth that have lifted at LSUS’s center.

Future LSU and San Diego Chargers running back Jacob Hester started lifting with Pierce at nine years old.

Pierce did leave in the mid-1990s to work as the training room manager at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta before taking a position with the National Strength and Conditioning Association in Colorado Springs.

But the latter was another office job out of the South, so Pierce found his way back to LSUS in short order.

Pierce was back in Shreveport by the late 1990s, in time for Kendrick Farris’ uncle to read about Pierce’s weightlifting club in a newspaper article.

Farris became one of the most accomplished U.S. weightlifters in the modern era.

He gave a video interview in 2017 when Pierce was inducted into the U.S. Weightlifting Hall of Fame.

“He’s meant everything,” said Farris after awarding Pierce the honor. “There’s this saying that the athlete is like the seed and a good coach is the soil. He’s been great for me. He’s given me an opportunity to take root and grow.

“I’ve learned so much from him, not just weightlifting but how to be an upright person. He truly embodies what the Olympic creed is about – peace through sport. He treats everyone the same. I’m truly thankful for him.”

International teams like Canada, Japan and Colombia have flocked to LSUS through the years. The Japanese trained at LSUS every year from 2009-2016.

Most recently, Pierce orchestrated a deal for Linwood Charter Middle School students to train at LSUS.

One Caddo Magnet student wanted to get involved in powerlifting, but the school didn’t have a team. Pierce is now the powerlifting coach at Caddo Magnet.

LSUS is also putting together a powerlifting team in addition to its weightlifting team.

But Pierce is much more than just a coach – he’s one of the most respected academic voices in sport.

An educator for more than four decades, Pierce infuses his coaching experience into the classroom and his academic research into the weightroom.

A scholar who has authored or co-authored 71 publications with nearly 119,000 reads and 3,000 citations according to researchgate.net, Pierce received the Doc Counsilman Award in 2006 from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

Recipients are recognized as coaches who employ scientific techniques or equipment as an integral part of their coaching methods.

“Of all the awards or honors that I’ve been given, the Doc Counsilman Award may be the one I’m most proud of,” Pierce said.

Pierce remains an engaged LSUS faculty member, most recently crafting a kinesiology concentration in coaching to add to his strength and conditioning concentration.

Both concentrations place a heavy emphasis on sport science.

 

WORLD TRAVELER

When Pierce teaches seminars or presents at academic conferences around the world, he does so with the backing of three organizations.

Pierce serves as the director of international relations at USA Weightlifting, a member of the coaching and research committee with the International Weightlifting Federation, and as the George A. Khoury Endowed Professor in Kinesiology at LSUS.

He uses funds from all three entities for his travel, although it’s not uncommon through the years for Pierce to dig into his own pocket if the need arises.

“This creates opportunities to go see countries and help out in countries that may not have the grants to do this kind of stuff,” said Pierce, who donned a Western Kentucky polo shirt, a jacket with ‘Kenya’ emblazoned on the back and pants with ‘Ghana’ running down the leg. “Most of my trips involve me participating in seminars for coaches and athletes in other countries.

“It’s an amazing opportunity because you go and stay in people’s homes and see what life is like in other countries.”

Many of Pierce’s trips this past decade have been to Africa, which started in 2014 when the IWF sent Pierce to Kenya to instruct coaches.

Kenya recommended Pierce to other African countries.

Pierce, who had never traveled out of the U.S. until his 40s, ended up coaching Ghana in the 2016 Olympics and regularly visits countries in both East and West Africa.

He worked with Ghanaian weightlifters remotely and in person since 2014, and when the country unexpectedly needed a coach, Pierce answered the call leading up to the 2016 games while also coaching Farris in those games.

Pierce was named Coach of the Year in both the U.S. and Ghana in 2016.

More recently, Pierce visited a Burundi coach who built homemade weights after the coach made his way to a Pierce seminar in Kenya.

“This guy did everything out of his house,” said Pierce, who added that he’s looking to bring students from Ghana, Rwanda and Burundi to LSUS. “He put the weights together and made the colors for different weights.

“I feel that I’m more at home in Africa than I am in the U.S.,” Pierce said. “They relax and take the time to enjoy life. They lack so many material things, but a lot of people seem to be happy because they take the time to enjoy each other.”

Pierce has traveled to countries in Asia and South America as well, spreading his love of sports science and weightlifting.

He doesn’t know when he’ll slow down – a hip replacement in September hasn’t stopped him.

“I’ve got the best job in the world,” Pierce said. “I’ve made friends from all over.”