Who I am and what I am doing here? My athletes at Johnson County Community College call me “coach Javorkian”. At University of Texas A&M my athletes called me “coach Pop”. Several college and high school conditioning coaches are calling me the ”Dumbbell King”. Back in Romania I was just “coach comrade” and for the very intimate athletes “Pista bacsi” (uncle Pista : which is the Hungarian nick name of Istvan-Steven).

I started my sport career as a violin player. At sixteen years of age my body weight was forty-five kilogram(99 lb.), and of course, like every East-European kid I played soccer, and all kind of little town’s “street given” fitness possibilities, but I did not practice any given sport. I was a skinny, and far away from being the strongest child of my neighborhood. Then one day coming home from the violin practice, walking on the streets, my sister, (who was a master level gymnast and able of beating me in wrestling) Eniko’s friend ambushed me on the street and coerced me of pressing my violin bow overhead.

I felt very embarrassed. That was the turning point of my life. I went home and on my mom’s biggest surprise I officially announced that I give up my bright violinist future and I will become an athlete.