UL SPORTS SCENE ALIVE AND WELL

School opens new weight room as search begins for new head football coach

Big changes and plenty of excitement are in the air on the Northshore as Upper Lake High School prepares to take a step up into the North Central League I once the 2023-24 sports season begins next August.

The Cougars will do so with a new weight/fitness facility, a new football coach and the inaugural recipient of the Coastal Mountain Conference Athletic Director of the Year Award, which was bestowed on Brian Figg last week.

Upper Lake High School has been without a bonafide weight room for nearly a decade, which was a huge disadvantage not only for ULHS football but for athletes in other sports as well. That situation has finally been remedied as the school's new facility had its soft opening earlier this month when a weight training class began working inside the large, well-furnished and beautifully decorated building, one that also houses an equipped health and fitness room that doubles as the wrestling team's practice facility complete with mats.

“Right now we're establishing procedures, safety protocols to train the kids up,” Figg said. “This has been in the planning stages since 2019,” Upper Lake High principal Dr. Annie Pivniska-Petrie said.

Along with input from students who were asked what they wanted in a weight/fitness room, the facility has all the modern equipment that you would expect in a top-ofthe-line facility, with plenty of asthetic touches that are the result of student input over the years.

Members of the ULHS graduating

classes of 2021 and 2022, who have since moved on, were heavily involved in the weight room's student committee process the last few years, according to both Figg

and Pivniska-Petrie.

“There were some sophomores back when when we started making plans that are still here to en

PHOTOS BY BRIAN SUMPTER Upper Lake High School's new and modernized weight room had is soft opening Jan. 9. Members of the spring semester weight training class, joined by athletic director Brian Figg and principal Annie Pivniska-Petrie, were making use of the new equipment Thursday. The weight room is one of many big changes for the Northshore high school as it prepares to rejoin the North Central League I in all sports beginning with the 2023-24 season.

Upper Lake High School athletic director Brian Figg is the recipient of the inaugural Coastal Mountain Conference Athletic Director of the Year Award. He was honored earlier in the week when the CMC principals and athletic directors met at Cloverdale High School. Looking on is Upper Lake principal Annie Pivniska-Petrie.