By Temo Olvera / Staff Writer

Casey Carpenter, the previous powerlifting coach,  left Missouri Valley College two weeks before Nationals. Michael Wilson, the coach before Carpenter, returned briefly to drive and advise the team at Nationals.

 “I would have made the same move,” said Allison Nally, a Valley powerlifter. “More money, a higher division.”

Nally said Carpenter informed his teams on a Tuesday afternoon and was gone by the following Friday. He now works as the head athletic performance coach for William Jewel. Jaelynn Ellison, the assistant athletic director for communications at William Jewell, said the school has been without a strength coach since January. Nally said Carpenter’s goal is to coach football at the D1 level. Moving from D3  at Millsaps college to NAIA at Valley, D2 at William Jewell is the next step in his career.

The team’s coaching staff at nationals included Anderson, three upperclassmen, and Wilson to help guide the majorly inexperienced team. Wilson left in May of last year, but team members say he pops in occasionally. 

“We have a lot of youngins,” said Nally “They’re not getting thrown in the ringer without a coach.”

Kael Venerable, one of the upperclassmen to aid the coach, said he was excited to see Wilson. He described Nationals as hectic, with time crunches between attempts, hundreds of lifters being bottlenecked onto platforms and the stress of deciding the weight for competitors. He said he was glad  Wilson was there to guide his coaching efforts.

“I know what I can hit, but doing it for someone else…” said Venerable. 

Venerable said Valley brought home four 4th place medals with competitors up against at least 30 of the top competitors in the nation. Venerable said Wilson’s presence may have been comforting to some of the team because they’ve had a longer time to bond, but no matter what would have happened Anderson is a good coach and handled the meet well.