LEWISTON — Since his freshman year, Lewiston’s Danny May has spent more than three hours a week in the high school’s weight room. It used to be a very lonely place.

When May enters the weight room now as a senior, it’s already buzzing on most days with construction workers using the entrance to get to their portion of the high school’s $13.4 million expansion project. But with groups of Lewiston football players rotating through (in socially distanced cohorts) during the week, May is finding the weight room a much less lonely place than he did even three years ago.

“Freshman year, it was just me and two other guys coming in during the offseason,” May said outside the weight room, “and now it’s the whole team coming in in the offseason and getting the work done.”

It’s still the offseason as far as May is concerned because there is no tackle football.  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Maine Principals’ Association has limited football to 7-on-7 touch football this fall.

“It makes it very frustrating for me because it’s my senior year and I don’t get to show all of the work I’ve put in in the offseason during a real game,” May said. “I can do it in 7-on-7, but it’s just not the same.”

A powerful tailback and punishing outside linebacker, May isn’t allowed to stiff-arm a would-be tackler or smother a quarterback in 7-on-7. So he and the Devils are looking for rewards for their hard work where they can find them.

“Just to be together a lot as a team and having fun,” he said.

That does bring some satisfaction to May, who can recall when it was tough to get a group of Blue Devils in the same room without some tension. He has seen team chemistry improve in the past couple of years, he said, which is a welcome change given that there are usually about 55 players using the weight room on a daily basis.

“We do most of our competing in the weight room,” May said. “We have bench competitions, squat competitions and deadlift competitions.”

The prize for the winner of those competitions is a T-shirt instead of a gold ball. But the rewards for May are more intangible these days.

“As far as his fitness and his work ethic, Danny is second to none,” said Lewiston football coach Darren Hartley, who knew May from being Lewiston’s baseball coach just before taking over the football program in 2019. “He’s gotten bigger, faster, stronger. He’s a tough kid. He bought into what I was selling.”

Hartley is selling offseason weight-room commitment translating into hard-nosed, physical play during the season to get the Blue Devils back to football prominence.

Hartley preaches the well-known football coaches’ credo that dedication in the weight room leads to not only better football players but better people. He wants players who aren’t afraid to be physical on the field and gentlemen off of it, and his years of coaching experience have taught him it’s critical for seniors to play that role in a locker room and weight room.

“The harder you work here, the better student-athlete you’re going to be,” Hartley said. “That is evidence-based. You come here and work your butt off, you come here and play as a team, you’re going to be a better student and a better son to your parents.”

“Danny is the poster child for being a good student, a good person, a silent leader, but he’s not afraid to stick his neck out and demand accountability,” Hartley said.

While injuries limited his opportunities to see the results on the field last year, May noted he doesn’t need to be on the gridiron to see how he and others have benefitted from the hard work.

“It is rewarding to me just to see how I’ve transformed myself and guys around me from my freshman year,” said May, who plans to enlist in the U.S. Army after high school graduation.

May credits Hartley with getting everyone pulling, or lifting, in the same direction. While still holding out hope for a spring season, he is nevertheless disappointed the Devils haven’t already been able to show the strides they’ve made on the field.

“I think we would have been able to show the fans and the state that we could compete with other teams,” he said.

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