Everyone has a story about how they were influenced to choose their life's path. Istvan "Steve" Javorek's story reads more like a movie script.

The strength and conditioning head coach for the JCCC athletic department, Javorek is also one of the most respected strength and conditioning coaches in the world. He has earned many accolades and honors throughout his career. In December 1992, Romania awarded him its highest coaching honor, the Emeritus Coaching Award. He also earned induction into the Missouri Valley Weightlifting Hall of Fame, the USA Strength and Conditioning Hall of Fame and the JCCC Athletics Hall of Fame. He has been a speaker-lecturer nine times at the National Strength and Conditioning Association conferences.

Javorek also has had more than 60 published articles in various sports journals and magazines. He most recently was featured in an article in the November 2008 issue of Men's Health Magazine.

Although Javorek has played a key role in the success of many athletes and teams during his tenure at JCCC and earlier at Texas A&M, his path to his success was far from easy. An ethnic Hungarian from Romania, Javorek was diagnosed with second-degree spina bifida, which limited his athletic activity during his youth. 

"At 16 I was a weak kid," Javorek said. "I weighed 100 pounds and played the violin. I really wanted to play sports, but the doctor did not allow me to play, so my sport was the violin."

Then one day while walking home from practice, Javorek was confronted by a member of a local weightlifting club. He forced Javorek to press his violin bow overhead like a barbell while making fun of him. Embarrassed, Javorek returned to his home and told his mother he was done with the violin and wanted to be athlete.

"That was a turning point in my life," Javorek said. "I joined the weightlifting club, and my goal was to be stronger than that guy who made fun of me. That was my motivation."

Three years after joining the club, Javorek made the Junior National Team for Romania and, as he predicted, beat his nemesis. By 1968, Javorek was an Olympic-caliber athlete and qualifier for the 1968 Olympics, but his country would not allow him to leave for the competition. Following that disappointment, he became the coach of the Clujana Sports Club in Cluj, Romania. Within four years, more than half of the national junior qualifiers were from his club.

In 1976, Javorek was to again have his shot at Olympic glory as a coach, but as before, his country denied him that opportunity. "They did not want me to go to the West," he said. "They told me I was not a trusting person."

Five years later, Javorek was told if he agreed to join the Communist Party, he would be allowed to coach abroad. He joined, took a team to West Germany, defected and asked for asylum in the United States.

Following his defection, the KGB began use scare tactics on his wife though interrogation and intimidation.

"It was very hard for her," he said. "They tried to get her to divorce me, and when she refused, they took away her citizenship and told her to leave the country in 72 hours."

Two and half years later, Javorek finally was reunited with his wife and daughter in New York. 

In his first year in the U.S., Javorek was invited by the South Korean Olympic Committee to train their national weightlifting team and instruct their coaches. In January 1984, he was hired as a coach at Bela Karolyi's World Gymnastics Academy in Houston, Texas. Later that year, Javorek was hired as the assistant coach of strength and conditioning at Texas A&M University; his duties included coaching track and field and working with women's athletics. Over the next few years, he designed the conditioning program for several Olympic and world-record-holding athletes and helped the Aggies women's softball team win the College World Series.

In 1987, Javorek joined the staff at JCCC. In his 23-year career here, he has been a part of 10 national championships, 85 Region VI titles, 118 East Jayhawk Conference championships and 67 teams that have finished in the top five in national championship play. 

"I can't imagine my life without educating," Javorek said. "It makes me feel fantastic. If I can make working out more enjoyable, then it doesn't seem as if you are working as hard. When my students are happy, I'm happy. I love it!"