Jim Schwingendorf is a New Prairie staff member who teaches the weights and athletic development classes.
Schwingendorf has been teaching for 11 years. Last year, he won the National High School Strength Coach Association Coach of the Year award for the state of Indiana.
He went to Purdue University and majored in Health and Kinesiology. In the past, Schwingendorf has also taught basic PE and health.
Schwingendorf contributes to New Prairie in a way that’s more than just teaching during the school day.
“In the mornings I do Zero Hour so I’m here at 5:45 to start at 6 and for all of our strength training after school as well. In the past, I have been a three sport coach. I coached football, wrestling, and track,” he said.
His hobbies include lifting weights and working out.
“I obviously train myself. I work out as well. I actually test the workouts myself before the students do them to make sure I didn’t put anything ridiculous on there that’s going to injure them or hurt them. I’ll hurt myself first,” he said.
Schwingendorf also enjoys flying a drone around.
“Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot I do. I’ve got some other little hobbies like I bought a cool drone this summer. I like flying that around, that’s fun,” he said.
His favorite type of movies are comedies.
“I like any comedy movies, like Chris Farley movies are my favorite. I like Adam Sandler movies. Any comedy movie comes on, I’ll sit down and watch it,” he said.
Schwingendorf really likes the show, MythBusters.
“I could sit down and watch reruns of MythBusters all day. I like science-y stuff too,” he said.
His favorite food is pizza and his favorite lift is cleans.
When in high school, Schwingendorf never thought he would become a teacher.
“In high school, if you would’ve told me I’d become a teacher, I would’ve called you a liar. I actually hated the idea of being in school for a long period of time. But it just kind of grew on me a little bit. I went to college just kind of picking it as a choice knowing that I’d switch, but I never switched, so I don’t know. It’s just something I enjoy doing, like, I don’t dread coming to work everyday,” he said.
Schwingendorf has three kids with his wife Amanda, a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 10 month old.
“[Amanda] is also a New Prairie graduate like I am. Actually, she was a state cross country champion during her freshman year of high school,” he said.
Schwingendorf said that his teaching career has evolved from when he first started to now.
“I was a classroom teacher, first teaching health and PE and then being a three sport coach evolved into me pretty much taking full time in the weight room which I’m glad. If you would’ve told me at the beginning of my teaching career that I would have done that, I would’ve called you a liar again because I thought it would be real boring to just be in one spot the whole time, but it’s kind of grown on me a little bit more as the years have gone by,” he said.
Schwingendorf got the opportunity to design the weight room with a clean slate.
“They smashed out walls and raised ceilings and stuff like that and then they also let me pick equipment and things like that. I did a lot of research. I went around the state, I probably saw 10 or 15 other weight rooms in the state. I had one coach in particular really help me who was the strength coach at Noblesville High School. He helped me a lot because I had a design and I showed it to him and he laid it very bluntly to me that it sucked. He told me reasons why, though, and now I feel like there’s a good flow to the room,” he said.
He says that he likes training boys because there's an intensity and the girls because they pay a lot more attention to detail.
Even though Schwingendorf played all three sports he coached, his real passion is track.
“When I was in high school, I really loved football the most, track became a second passion for me and I did wrestling too but I just did that to keep myself busy during the winter, I wasn’t really good at wrestling,” he said.
And regarding his coaching position for the 2020 football team he said as of right now, he doesn’t know. He added that it depends on the head coach.