High school football season doesn't begin until August.

Butler has already won its first game, as far as coach Garry Cathell is concerned.

The Golden Tornado sent two five-man squads to compete at the eighth annual Northern Area Football Coaches Association Weight Lifting Championships last weekend and came home after a record-setting performance.

The quintet of Nate Hartung, Mike Motko, Anthony McElhinny, Tom Gaul and Dan Tatangelo combined to lift 6,005 pounds, a meet record.

The former mark was 5,800 pounds.

"Those guys blew it away," Cathell said. "Mentally, this is the first win of the season for us, that's how we're approaching it."

There were 34 teams from 20 different high schools at the event. Shaler finished second with 5,755 pounds.

Hartung set individual NAFCA lifting records of 700 pounds in the squat, 550 pounds dead lift and 405 pounds bench press. His combined 1,655 pounds is easily a NAFCA record.

"And we would have won the event without Nate," Cathell said. "That's what's encouraging."

Butler's other entrant in the competition, Charlie Rodgers, Frank Kowalkowski, B.J. Thibodeau, Josh Wachter and Nolan Brink, finished fourth with 4,955 pounds lifted.

"Our kids lifted more than five tons down there," Butler weight coach Joe Savannah said. "That's incredible.

"Coach Cathell brought a weight program here that's used at Virginia Tech. It involves a lot of repetitions and combines well with the weight program we already had in place.

"We've taken that program from a college format and brought it to the high school level," Savannah added.

Savannah said he used to test the weight-training progress of Tornado football players every eight weeks.

Now he tests them every three or four weeks.

"Their rate of development has accelerated that much," Savannah said. "The bottom line is the end result: They're getting bigger and stronger at a rate they can handle."

Savannah said Butler's index - the players' body weight vs. the amount of weight they're bench pressing - is "very, very good."

"The repetitions solidify their strengths and build their endurance," he said.

For a football program looking for confidence such as Butler, which has not reached the WPIAL playoffs since 1998 and hasn't had a winning season since 1997, Cathell said this is a good start.

"If a kid feels strong, he'll play better on the field," the coach said. "Confidence goes a long way."

So do numbers.

Cathell said he has 60 varsity players involved in a steady weight program at the high school annex building and another 60 freshman and junior high players in a similar program at the intermediate high school.

All 10 of the players involved at last weekend's NAFCA event will be back next season.

"The weight program at the intermediate school has been in place for two years now," Cathell said. "We're just starting to get the first group of those kids.

"Power football wins in our section. Now Upper St. Clair is coming in, and that's another power team. We're getting ready.

"They say football games are won or lost in the off-season. We're working on those wins right now," Cathell added.