Eric Rogers was next door at Sapporo getting sushi when he saw Brian and me dragging horse stall mats into the empty storefront that used to be a kids' clothing store. His wife had shopped there when their kids were little. So he popped his head in to see what was going on, and we told him we were opening a CrossFit gym.
That was 2012. Eric lives in Hopkinton, he's almost 57, recently retired, and he's been at Prototype pretty much since the day we opened. Which means he was here for the horse stall mats, the pull-up bars I mounted so high on the wall you had to climb a box to reach them, and the ice luge parties. He was also, as he will happily tell anyone, our first injury.
I'll get to that.
Fitness Was Never the Point
Eric wrestled all through high school and in leagues outside it, and took a silver medal at the Bay State Games in 1988. After that, fitness came at him sideways. He graduated college, drove cross-country with a buddy, hiked Half Dome in Yosemite at 18, and decided the next evolution was rock climbing. He hired a guide. Rock climbing turned into ice climbing. Ice climbing turned into mountaineering. Along the way he picked up scuba diving, fly fishing, offshore fishing, and, more recently, competitive pistol shooting. He's got a basement full of gear and says whichever friend calls first decides what he's doing that weekend.
He had a gym membership once, back when he lived in Cambridge. It lasted about a year. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, back and biceps, treadmill.
"Fitness was more a means to an end. I always wanted to be fit enough so that if the phone rang and someone said, 'Hey, we're planning a trip in the Cascades,' I'd say, 'I just got to get the gear together. I don't have to get in shape.'"
— EricThe first time he'd ever heard of CrossFit was in a mountaineering book by Mark Twight, who wrote about the varied, dynamic approach and called the clean and jerk one of the greatest movements of all time. Eric didn't even know what a clean and jerk was. But it fit the way he already lived: never the same thing twice, always a reason to be ready. That's what got him in the door with us.
Our First Injury
In the first month or two, if you came to Prototype, your workout partners were Brian and me. You were getting coached and partnering with the owners at the same time. Somewhere in Eric's first week or two, he climbed the box up to the pull-up bar, did a bunch of pull-ups (jumping pull-ups, if you ask me; butterfly kipping, if you ask Eric), and stepped off sloppily. High ankle sprain. He'd never had one before.
"I got to see coach-slash-owner Mike in action. Slash panic."
— EricHe's not wrong. We had no ice in the building, so I ran home to get some, and while I was at it I grabbed the waiver we hadn't gotten around to yet. Eric likes to joke that I wouldn't hand over the ice until he signed. For the record: ice first, then a very polite "Dude, you mind signing this?" It was a good lesson for a brand-new gym owner. We spent the next six to eight weeks building his ankle rehab into his workouts, and he never really left.
The 6 a.m. class in those days was a small crew that included Karen and John Burton. One morning Karen mentioned her daughter went to school in Pennsylvania. Eric said, "Oh, was that Lehigh? I went to Lehigh." Then Karen mentioned her daughter was dating the owner of the gym. From that point on, Eric had a running bit at my expense: "Your son-in-law ran a good class today." "Your son-in-law sprained my ankle last week." A couple of years later he was at our wedding.
"You guys were my first intergenerational friends," he told me. "The Burtons and the Collettes. And now I'm working on a third generation with your daughters." He's not kidding. I looked at my daughter yesterday and she woke up smiling because she'd seen Eric.
Watching the Place Grow Up
Eric has a clearer view of our fourteen years than almost anyone, and he's honest about the early version. It was a little more hardcore. Some days you'd watch the muscle heads snatching 185 and aspire to be one, and some days you'd think it was a bit much. The St. Patrick's Day party had a double-unders-and-beer competition. Somebody puked. Nobody was allowed to film it.
What he's watched happen since is the gym growing up alongside its members: from trying to win the Games to realizing that functional fitness as an aging dad is the actual point. "Consistency beats intensity has really become part of the culture here," he says. "There's been a better trajectory than the go-hards of the days of old." I couldn't have said it better, and I've tried.
The other thing that pulled him in early was the Hero WODs. Eric has a deep respect for the men and women who serve, in the military and as first responders, and it runs in his family. His father collected World War II military vehicles, and Eric learned to double-clutch driving them as a kid. In 1984, at 14, he spotted an amphibious DUKW in New Hampshire when almost nobody knew what one was. They bought it and restored it. Not long after, a guy knocked on the door and started Boston Duck Tours, and Eric's father got involved. Eric has since traveled to the Pacific and to Europe three times, stood on Iwo Jima, befriended a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, and volunteers at a WWII museum in Hudson. He was headed there right after we sat down for this interview.
So our first Murph was the first workout he can remember being excited for. He still has the original Murph T-shirt. He was excited about the 9/11 workout the day after we talked, too. "I like this gym's commitment to supporting our heroes in the community," he told me, "and the heroes within our community." That one means a lot to me.
Fourteen Years of Receipts
Eric's Wodify history opens on May 22, 2013 and is still being written. That's 772 logged results across 72 different loaded movements, one of the longest and most complete training records we have. His lifetime deadlift is 375 pounds, set in December 2014. This year he's pulled 325 twice, in March and again in August. His first logged bench, in his first month here, was 205. Last December he benched 200.
The part I want you to pay attention to is the most recent stretch. Every result he's logged since July 21 of this year came back with a PR flag: a 325 deadlift, a 145 push press, a benchmark Helen at 11:38, and a full day of accessory bests on July 29 that included a weighted pull-up, a Turkish get-up, and a single-leg RDL. The Turkish get-up is his heaviest ever, set this summer, twelve years after his first logged rep. He's almost 57. That is not a wind-down.
"I've had terrible shoulder problems, probably since I was a teenager from wrestling. There are movements I couldn't do that now that I'm spending more time in the gym, I'm doing. I snatched 65 pounds yesterday. I haven't snatched 65 pounds in probably 10 years."
— EricWhat Fills His Cup
I asked Eric what he's proudest of, and it wasn't a lift or a summit. It's being a father and building a home. He's been married to Ronni for 22 years. His son Jake is at Syracuse and doing great. His daughter Kylie is a strong athlete and a strong student getting ready to apply to college. He also told me there's a softer side people don't see in a gym: he spent years in IT for a senior care company, and he saw a lot there.
His idea of a perfect day is putting his head on the pillow knowing it was productive and that he improved the lives of the people around him. Leave it better than you found it. That used to happen at the office. Now it's public service, volunteering, and family.
And, more than he expected, it's the gym. "I'm not going to an office anymore," he said. "Coming in here might be the only socializing I do outside of my family on some given day. A community of really good, successful, smart, kind people is the kind of people you want to surround yourself with."
I asked him where he'd be without it. He didn't hesitate. "I'd certainly be fatter. I probably would have taken up smoking." Then the real answer: it's easy to sit by the pool and drink margaritas. But then the phone rings, and someone wants to go climbing tomorrow, and you'd have to say no. Fourteen years in, Eric still doesn't have to say no. He came in for a way to stay ready for the phone call. What I think he found is that the gym became the phone call.
