Team: Be strong, hold onto your dreams

By Harold Gwin

The Power Force team brought strength and motivation to Eagle Heights.

YOUNGSTOWN — Jason Dunkle watched as a telephone book was torn in half and a steel bar bent into a circle, but it was seeing a man break a baseball bat across his own back, using only his arm strength, that really got his attention.

“That was sweet,” the Eagle Heights Academy eighth-grader said.

Dunkle was one of about 400 fourth- through eighth-graders attending a school assembly Tuesday featuring members of John Jacobs’ Next Generation Power Force, a troupe that combines feats of strength with motivational messages.

Hold onto your dreams and don’t give in to temptations that will deter you from those dreams, was the focal point of Tuesday’s message.

The displays of strength were interesting, but following that advice is “the hard part,” Dunkle said.

It’s good advice, offered Austin Johnson, another eighth-grader, adding that the message impressed him.

The members of the team — Josh Whisneant, Paul Rodgers and Orestes Blay — had the Eagle Heights pupils screaming encouragement during their feats of strength, which also included rolling up a metal frying pan like a roll of paper and squeezing cans of soda between their hands until the cans popped, spraying the audience.

It was after they captured the kids’ attention that Whisneant began delivering his message, encouraging them to “hold onto your hopes and dreams with everything you’ve got.”

“There’s going to be stuff in your way,” he warned, urging them to resist temptations such as cheating on a test or getting involved with drugs — things that could derail their dreams.

He encouraged them to concentrate on their studies, be respectful of their teachers and to “believe in yourself.”

It doesn’t matter where you come from or what color you are, he advised, adding, “You can do anything in this world if you put your mind to it.”

Before the team left, it presented every pupil with a ticket to a rally it is holding at 7 p.m. today at Youngstown Christian School.

“These kids need to hear that message. They can be successful,” said Peter Santore, Eagle Heights assistant principal, after the performance.

The invitation to the John Jacobs team, which is known internationally, came at the suggestion of a member of the school board, he said.

Eagle Heights wasn’t the team’s only stop in the region.

It was at Boardman High School on Tuesday morning and visited Springfield High and Intermediate schools as well as Alpha: School of Excellence for Boys in Youngstown on Monday. Today, it was to perform at Youngstown Christian and Heartland Christian School.

The team also held four evening rallies, with the last scheduled tonight at Youngstown Christian.

gwin@vindy.com