Everyday People: Young Seaside powerlifter sets national mark
Published 9:45 am Monday, December 12, 2022
- Brayden Cooley, with parents Curtis and Yvette, took home two gold medals at the United States Powerlifting Association’s Oregon state championship event in Newport.
SEASIDE — A young athletic star is on the rise.
Trending
As an eighth grader at Seaside Middle School, Brayden Cooley’s school sports are football, basketball, wrestling and baseball.
But once he hits high school, Cooley will alter that list to football, wrestling and track, along with his current specialty, powerlifting.
He admits that football may be the sport that eventually takes him places, but powerlifting has become a pretty successful hobby.
Trending
Cooley’s most recent competition took place in early December at the Hallmark Resort in Newport, the site of the United States Powerlifting Association’s Oregon state championship event.
Just four months into his competitive powerlifting career, Cooley set a new national record in the deadlift for a 13-year-old and added a state record mark in the bench press. He returned home with a pair of gold medals for his efforts.
“I thought I was going to do better in the bench press,” Cooley said. “I tried to set the national record, so I was disappointed when I was unable to get that.”
But the positives far outweighed the negatives.
At 148 pounds, Cooley lifted a national record 336 pounds in the deadlift, and had a best of 170 pounds in the bench press, a new state record. The national record for 13-year-olds in the bench press is still 210, and Cooley will be going after that one next.
“I didn’t know I was going to be able to deadlift 336,” he said, “because the week before in training, I was only able to lift 315. But I was able to pump out 336,” which shattered the previous national record — 319 — for 13-year-olds.
“Our goal is to get Brayden to the world’s,” said his father, Curtis Cooley, referring to the world championships. “He qualified as a Class 1 lifter, but you have to be at least 15 to enter a world event.”
When it comes to powerlifting, Curtis Cooley also serves as Brayden’s coach and trainer.
And the elder Cooley knows the sport, being a former national placer himself in powerlifting.
“For Brayden’s body weight, 148, it’s pretty amazing that he pulled 336,” he said. “That’s a lot of weight for a 13-year-old.”
Brayden Cooley is focused on his basketball and wrestling seasons at Seaside Middle School. In wrestling, he qualified last year for the middle school state tournament, competing against wrestlers from schools of all sizes and placing second in his weight division.
“We’re going to try to get him a state title this year,” Curtis Cooley said. “We’re going to keep lifting, but we’ll probably get in one more (event) before he turns 14, to see if we can’t get that national bench press record.”
According to his dad, “it was only about four months ago that we started getting real serious” about powerlifting. “We trained four weeks for this state meet, training pretty much every day. It’s a cycle that you have to go through, in order to peak at your strength,” he said.
In the recent state championships, “we were there to set records,” Curtis Cooley said. “I don’t mean that egotistically. It was just that he was in reach of those records.”
Once he hits the high school level in the fall of 2023, fans of the Seaside Gulls can expect to see Brayden Cooley playing football and competing in wrestling.
Brayden Cooley will also likely take part as a thrower on the track team, competing — naturally — in the shot put and discus.
“My favorite sports are probably wrestling and powerlifting,” he said. “But football’s also in there. I know football’s going to get me further in life, if I get to the college level. In the long run, football’s one of my favorite sports.”
One thing that Brayden Cooley definitely likes about wrestling and powerlifting — they’re individualized sports.
“It’s all me,” he said. “If I want to win, I have to put in the work.”
And, Curtis Cooley adds, “the best thing of all, he’s a straight-A student.”