From My Experience: Make A Friend

November 2008

By Pete Fancher

I want to hit on a couple of topics this month as the season is winding down for 2008.
Those who have competed at shows where I have been the head judge have probably heard me comment on taking the time to meet someone at the show - - to introduce yourself and to strike up a conversation. The outcome could be having someone to help you backstage at a larger show where there is limited help, such as the larger national shows, and you could wind up making a valuable friend for life.

My very first show as a competitor was the 1975 Florida State, back then it was run by the AAU, and talk about being nervous. There were only 15 of us in the show, with no weight classes, and three of the competitors that day were Robby Robinson, Ivor Butcher and Nat Sheppard who were probably three of the largest and best bodybuilders in Florida at that time.

I quickly realized that I had a lot of work to do and if it were not for Nat Sheppard coming up and introducing himself, asking if it was my first show, how I trained and dieted for it, I would have probably never entered another show. For the next two years he was my mentor on training and diet and we talked at every show and he evaluated my progress.

It was not uncommon for a group of us to sit down while waiting on the prejudging to start, back then it was not unusual for the prejudging to start anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes late, and discuss training, dieting and contest prep. There was no such thing as personal trainers. We trained ourselves - - imagine that!

The most common form of diet in the late 70’s was the high protein, zero carb diet - - which translated into eating all of the beef, chicken and fish that you could consume and absolutely no carbs. It worked, but your energy was next to nothing at the end of 8 weeks and your brain function was about the same.
The first competitor that came onto the scene looking not only ripped, but full, was George Prince of Miami. We were all in amazement and to our surprise George showed us all a new form of diet where mid-way through he had slowly made the switch from zero carb to approximately 80% carb and little protein. He had more energy than ever before, his poundages did not drop in his training and his brain was working in coordination with his body. George not only shared this information with us, but showed us his diet notebook that he kept for his contest prep.

We just don’t see this today. At some point the personal trainer started to emerge. The first ones were decent but with success comes those who have no idea what they are doing and only parrot what they have heard someone in the gym say, or some article that they read, or that someone else read and they overheard them talking about it - - plus as an added bonus - - they had never dieted or competed in a show themselves, but they are the experts on how to do it. They discouraged the athlete they were paid to train and prep from speaking with other competitors - - they were the competition! Don’t talk to them, only to me!

The personal trainer virtually destroyed the comradery of those athletes competing.
An added bonus was that we began to see athletes passing out on stage, backstage, cramping up so bad they had to be assisted off stage, and in a couple of cases never even making it on stage due to severe cramps and in one case a seizure.

The situation has improved considerably as the “bad” trainers, those who obviously had no clue as to what they were preaching or doing, have all but disappeared and more knowledgeable and professional trainers have taken their place. Thank goodness!!!

To get back on my original subject of friendship. In the late 70’s most of the shows in Central Florida were held in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando and Jacksonville. At the shows in St. Petersburg the head expeditor was a fella by the name of Ron Dudley. He had a way of making you feel comfortable, if you were nervous, and always had a huge smile and a joke to tell. Over the course of a couple of seasons we became friends and competed against each other in several shows. Upon becoming Chairman for Central Florida I immediately called on Ron to be my vice-chair and he accepted.
At that time, 1992, we had close to 30 shows just in the Central District, which put us together just about every weekend from April to October. We not only shared hotel rooms, more meals than I can remember, but we shared our lifes, our dreams, our families - - the good and the bad. We took over the promotion of the Southeastern USA and did that together for several years.

In the real world, Ron owned a company that re-finished pools. He twisted his knee on the job and his career in that industry came to a halt. Ron decided to try massage therapy as he enjoyed people and knew that he could do some good. It was a hard struggle for him. Learning the medical terminology for all of the muscles was not easy for him and we made up several sets of flash cards and each weekend in between the prejudging and the evening show we would spend several hours doing flash cards. He passed his boards with flying colors.

After 7 years as vice chair Ron started to tire of all of the weekends away from home and having just become a grandfather he wanted to spend that time at home and be “grandpa.” Even though we no longer traveled the circuit together we spoke on the phone each week and visited as often as possible.
Ron was diagnosed with cancer in November of 2003 - - he passed away on July 30, 2004. I was lucky to have had the honor to be with him when he passed and to speak at his service. I miss Ron Dudley very much and at each city where we have a show I have a memory of our favorite place to eat or something funny that happened.

Take the time to meet someone - - bring back that comradeship that was there when I started and make the effort to make a friend. That is what bodybuilding, fitness and figure competition is really all about - - not everyone walks out with a trophy, but you can walk out with a new friend.