At age 16, Derrick began lifting weights at the Belleville Weightlifting Club, under nationally-ranked weightlifter/coach, Ted Frank. Derrick’s parents, Howard and Jane, were supportive as he showed a gift for the Olympic lifts. He won all national age-group competitions and set many National Junior records as a teenager. His junior career culminated with an 11th place finish at the 1980 Jr. World Championships in Montreal, Canada. At the expense of attaining a college education early, he moved to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to pursue his dream of making an Olympic team. At the USOTC, he was coached by Harvey Newton, MA, and sport psychologist, Michael J. Mahoney, PhD. Derrick’s athletic career, and his life, became about maximizing his physical and psychological potentials.
Derrick quickly became a force in weightlifting. He competed in the 1982 and 1983 Olympic Festivals. Derrick represented the United States in the 1982 World Championships in Ljubjiana, Yugoslavia, and won the Oceania Championships in Papeete, Tahiti in 1984.
The “Crash”
Just prior to the 1983 National Championships, while training like a mad man and ignoring all the signs of overtraining, Derrick fractured his L4 vertebra and ruptured the L4-5 disc, rendering him unable to walk. Heavy doses of prescribed cortisone for the next year enabled him to regain painful walking and lifting, but lead to Cushing’s syndrome, and intense knee pain.
At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, CA, Derrick received cortisone injections into the infrapatellar ligament of his right knee eight days prior to competition. Assured by the medical team that nothing would go wrong, he competed. Disaster struck. During Derrick’s first lift of the competition, as he was beginning to explode upwards with the barbell, he felt a quick rip in his leg, and saw his leg descend into a dark hole in the platform, and scores of splinters fly upwards. As the bar continued upward overhead, he was unable to fix the barbell. In an instant, the bar came crashing down and shot him backwards, flipping him onto his stomach. Convinced that the platform broke, he looked up to discover the platform was fine; it was he that was broken. He tried to get up, but instantaneous and intense knee pain prevented any change in leg position. He tried to sit up, but felt as if his right arm was nailed to the platform. He looked at his arm to discover it was dislocated at the elbow. The medics put his elbow back in place, and Derrick hobbled off the platform and down the stairs. He hopped onto a stretcher and into retirement, or so it seemed.
The Comeback
Back in Belleville, Illinois, several reconstructive knee and elbow surgeries soon followed. So did the birth of his daughter, Rachel. To regain strength and mobility, from his career-ending injuries, Derrick did what he knew how to do, lift weights. After a year-and-a-half he realized that the weights he was lifting in his Olympic-lifting rehab program would place him on the podium at Nationals. He decided to evolve his rehab program into a training program and return to competition. Self-coached, he won his first National Championship in 1987, in Livonia, Michigan, and his first Olympic Festival in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
Derrick participated in new Russian electrical stimulation research conducted by his orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Richard C. Lehman, as an important training tool to make the 1988 Olympic Team. Working full-time as a police officer for the City of Belleville, Illinois, he trained 2-3 times each day and miracously came back to make the 1988 Olympic Team, placing 9th in the clean and jerk and 11th overall. Derrick went on to win the 1989 National Championships and the “Best Lifter” award in Houston, Texas, the 1989 Olympic Festival in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and he represented the United States in the 1989 World Championships in Athens, Greece. Derrick won his second consecutive National title in 1990 in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and represented the United States at the Moomba International Championships in Melbourne, Australia, placing third.
Retirements 2.0 & 2.1
Numerous surgeries to Derrick’s elbows, knees, and shoulders resulting from “The Crash” eventually led to his retirement in 1992, after narrowly missing his bid to make his third Olympic Team. Derrick graduated from Washington University’s Program in Physical Therapy in 1994 and opened his clinic and training facility in 1997. His daughter, Rachel, began training for weightlifting competition and Derrick returned to compete as a Master’s athlete (age 35+). He set Master’s National and Pan-American records, and won medals at Master’s World Championships. The preparation paid off. In 2002, Rachel and Derrick competed together in New York City at the Sr. National Championships; she was one of the youngest competitors, he was the oldest.
Mission
Derrick’s driving force is to help people of all ages and abilities attain their fitness and athletic goals. He provides training programs and conducts seminars on nutrition for weight management, injury prevention/recovery, beginning fitness/training programs, and advanced technique/power training in the Olympic lifts.