Topic: News: St. Joseph’s Snethen coaching U.S. WL Team in Beijing

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Dennis Snethen coaching U.S. Weightlifting team in Beijing

The Olympics always are a spectacle, and St. Joseph’s Dennis Snethen is in the middle of it all.

“Kobe Bryant was next door to me last night,” the head coach of the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team said. “I’ve sat next to tennis star (Rafael) Nadal and ate with basketball star Dirk Nowitzki.”

On his journey to Olympic prominence, Snethen started by building the Wesley Center into a national weightlifting powerhouse.

During his three decades of coaching, he’s mentored two St. Joseph youths who grew into Olympians.

Wes Barnett lifted in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and won a silver and a bronze medal at the 1997 world championships. Pete Kelley, who also started lifting with Snethen at the Wesley Center, earned a trip to the Olympics, too.

It’s all made for many memories for Snethen.

“My favorite memory at the Olympics was Wesley Barnett’s first lift in Barcelona, Spain,” Snethen said. “That was a great feeling and made me proud of what he had achieved. Also, Peter Kelly and his first lift in Atlanta, and Wes’s great American records in Atlanta.”

The trip isn’t a vacation and requires a great deal of dedication and work. But the work is not done in a vacuum. There’s time to enjoy the moment, too, he said.

“The most fun I’ve had,” Snethen said, “was watching the (U.S. basketball) Dream Team in 1992, 1996 and 2000.”

The weightlifting action began Saturday, though, and the work’s only getting started.