When NIU strength and conditioning coach Matt Mangum graduated from high school in 1992, he weighed 135 pounds.

Of course things change, and 12 years later, that featherweight teen is a 230-pound, brick house of a man with a 53-inch chest, 36-inch waist and 19-inch biceps.

Despite his dimensions, when compared to the men he works out with, Mangum might as well still be a featherweight. But so is everybody else compared to World’s Strongest Man competitors Brian Schoonveld, strength and conditioning coach at UNLV, Mark Phillipi and Ed Coan who owns almost every lifting world record. Mangum isn’t quite in that league.

Even squatting 600 pounds, dead lifting 606 pounds and benching 551 pounds, won’t get him into that league, but it did help him take second place at the United States Powerlifting Federation Senior National Powerlifting Meet on Aug. 14. And with that placing Mangum will compete in the power lifting World Championships.

“Really the whole reason I got into [being a strength and conditioning coach] was to continue my own amateur career in power lifting,” Mangum said. “And since 1996, I have been doing it competitively and the second place finish has been the culmination of my efforts so far, but it wasn’t always easy trying to compete and coach. When I was under Phillipi as an assistant, I thought being a strength and conditioning coach was great because you get to stay in the weight room all day, work out whenever you want to and practice what you preach.”

But leaving Phillipi and UNLV for his own program, Mangum found out having your own program is not all fun and games. With the state of the NIU program, Mangum made the personal sacrifice to spend his first three years working to bulk up the athletes instead of bulking up himself, missing three years of competition.

Yet, when spring rolled around this year, Mangum had to go back to what he was passionate about. He couldn’t put his dreams on hold any longer.

“I sat down with [NIU football coach Joe Novak] and my staff and said this is something I have to do,” Mangum said. “And they have been behind me all the way and without them and the athletes, I wouldn’t have succeeded. My staff covered for me when I trained in Chicago and the football coaches were always just so understanding.”

But Mangum’s main sources of motivation are the players he helps train. The guys like football players P.J. Fleck, Josh Haldi and Nick Duffy, who used up his last year of eligibility in 2003.

“Matt is a huge motivator for the players and this program, and when I played here I know I always worked out harder because of him,” said Duffy, a former linebacker. “I remember when he first came in here and he weighed like 200 pounds and would tell me that he was going to be bigger and stronger than I was and I didn’t believe him at the time but I am so proud of him now.”

It’s people like Duffy, his staff and the coaches that help him through the pain and fatigue he endures while training for his next meet, the Texas Cup Invitational on Nov. 13.

He just knows that he can’t let his athletes down – those athletes that pump him up, smack him on the back, push him as he has pushed them.

And he thanks them all with every muscle in his body.