In the gritty, burnt out, hardscrabble town of Scranton, PA life was simple, but tough. A former coal mining town, about 2 hours due west of the Big Apple, Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000 hard working people. But as alternative sources of energy such as oil and natural gas were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city, along with its sister city Wilkes-Barre, lost about half of its population through natural attrition. In 1992, the State of Pennsylvania declared Scranton a distressed city, a designation it still holds. Still life went on without too much complaint for a mostly immigrant and definitely blue collar population. There was also a small, but growing Black community who interacted reasonably well with their immigrant counterparts despite being at the end of the old Jim Crow era of racial segregation . It was in this environment that one of Powerlifting’s true legends was born and raised- the great Jim Williams- the Scranton Superman. This is his story, one of triumph and pain, of scintillating World Records and many years of humbling incarceration, of unreal training methodologies and finally of redemption and inner peace.

In the gritty, burnt out, hardscrabble town of Scranton, PA life was simple, but tough. A former coal mining town, about 2 hours due west of the Big Apple, Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000 hard working people. But as alternative sources of energy such as oil and natural gas were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city, along with its sister city Wilkes-Barre, lost about half of its population through natural attrition. In 1992, the State of Pennsylvania declared Scranton a distressed city, a designation it still holds. Still life went on without too much complaint for a mostly immigrant and definitely blue collar population. There was also a small, but growing Black community who interacted reasonably well with their immigrant counterparts despite being at the end of the old Jim Crow era of racial segregation . It was in this environment that one of Powerlifting’s true legends was born and raised- the great Jim Williams- the Scranton Superman. This is his story, one of triumph and pain, of scintillating World Records and many years of humbling incarceration, of unreal training methodologies and finally of redemption and inner peace.

In the gritty, burnt out, hardscrabble town of Scranton, PA life was simple, but tough. A former coal mining town, about 2 hours due west of the Big Apple, Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000 hard working people. But as alternative sources of energy such as oil and natural gas were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city, along with its sister city Wilkes-Barre, lost about half of its population through natural attrition. In 1992, the State of Pennsylvania declared Scranton a distressed city, a designation it still holds. Still life went on without too much complaint for a mostly immigrant and definitely blue collar population. There was also a small, but growing Black community who interacted reasonably well with their immigrant counterparts despite being at the end of the old Jim Crow era of racial segregation . It was in this environment that one of Powerlifting’s true legends was born and raised- the great Jim Williams- the Scranton Superman. This is his story, one of triumph and pain, of scintillating World Records and many years of humbling incarceration, of unreal training methodologies and finally of redemption and inner peace.

In the gritty, burnt out, hardscrabble town of Scranton, PA life was simple, but tough. A former coal mining town, about 2 hours due west of the Big Apple, Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000 hard working people. But as alternative sources of energy such as oil and natural gas were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city, along with its sister city Wilkes-Barre, lost about half of its population through natural attrition. In 1992, the State of Pennsylvania declared Scranton a distressed city, a designation it still holds. Still life went on without too much complaint for a mostly immigrant and definitely blue collar population. There was also a small, but growing Black community who interacted reasonably well with their immigrant counterparts despite being at the end of the old Jim Crow era of racial segregation . It was in this environment that one of Powerlifting’s true legends was born and raised- the great Jim Williams- the Scranton Superman. This is his story, one of triumph and pain, of scintillating World Records and many years of humbling incarceration, of unreal training methodologies and finally of redemption and inner peace.

In the gritty, burnt out, hardscrabble town of Scranton, PA life was simple, but tough. A former coal mining town, about 2 hours due west of the Big Apple, Scranton, named for industrialist brothers George and Selden Scranton, was the anthracite coal capital in the 1930s and the third largest city in Pennsylvania with 140,000 hard working people. But as alternative sources of energy such as oil and natural gas were tapped in the 1950s, the coal industry suffered and the city, along with its sister city Wilkes-Barre, lost about half of its population through natural attrition. In 1992, the State of Pennsylvania declared Scranton a distressed city, a designation it still holds. Still life went on without too much complaint for a mostly immigrant and definitely blue collar population. There was also a small, but growing Black community who interacted reasonably well with their immigrant counterparts despite being at the end of the old Jim Crow era of racial segregation . It was in this environment that one of Powerlifting’s true legends was born and raised- the great Jim Williams- the Scranton Superman. This is his story, one of triumph and pain, of scintillating World Records and many years of humbling incarceration, of unreal training methodologies and finally of redemption and inner peace.

Last Saturday, at the USAPL Northeast and Raw HS/Collegiate Powerlifting Championships in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Joe Cappellino (shw) bench pressed 584, 606 then 633 pounds to set a new USAPL Collegiate American Record. The press is also the heaviest in collegiate history, regardless of weight class. Trey Jewett (220) held the former mark at 628 pounds. It also broke his own USAPL New York Junior State Record and ranks him twelfth on the Powerlifting Watch Lifter Rankings.