There are so many opportunities that I can get here that I am not able to get anywhere else.
Image (from left): Samantha Kent ’27 and Zoe Necerato, Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach
From Peddie Athletics
Here at Peddie, the Varsity Strength and Conditioning program is designed to help athletes become faster, stronger and more powerful. To support this goal, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach Mike Volkmar created the Iron Falcon program, a series of strength, power and speed exercises with standards designed to assess an athlete’s relative strength.
Each Peddie athlete has the opportunity to achieve their Iron Falcon goals over the course of their high school career. Using an algorithm to calculate relative strength goals, each athlete is given a unique set of numbers to strive for, determining how strong, fast and powerful they are relative to their body weight.
The Iron Falcon program also awards bonus points for Discipline, Consistency and Scholarship, recognizing that athletic development extends beyond what happens during a workout.
This year, Samantha Kent ’27 became the first student-athlete to achieve the Iron Falcon Award during the 2026–27 school year. Her accomplishment represents not only her physical strength and athletic ability, but also the consistency and determination she brought to the weight room.
For Kent, however, the journey to becoming an Iron Falcon didn’t begin with a goal of winning an award.
It started during spring exam week. Looking for a break from studying, Kent headed to the weight room. There was no grand plan and no particular person pushing her to train. It was simply a way to clear her head, but soon transformed into something more.
What began as an occasional break grew into a fascination with strength training — and the idea of seeing just how much weight she could lift.
“I eventually became fascinated with the thought of being able to lift a lot of weight,” Kent said.
By the summer before her junior year, going to the gym had become a consistent part of her routine. Looking back, however, there is one thing she would change: starting sooner.
“If I could give my freshman self one piece of advice, I would tell myself to start going to the gym consistently earlier,” she said. “I wish I had started this journey earlier in my high school career.”
There was no single moment or individual responsible for the transformation. Instead, the motivation grew naturally. The more time Kent spent in the weight room, the more interested she became in the process of getting stronger.
Becoming an Iron Falcon requires more than being strong. The program challenges athletes across a variety of movements, including speed and agility. For Kent, the sprints proved to be the toughest part of the challenge.
“I’d say that the sprints were much harder for me than the lifts and took much more specific training than the lifts,” she said.
Kent’s defining Iron Falcon moment came during the pro agility, or 5-10-5 shuttle. The drill requires athletes to accelerate, decelerate, change direction and explode back toward the finish. For her, it became the exercise that stood out most from the entire experience.
The lessons she learned through the process, however, extend well beyond the Iron Falcon testing.
For aspiring Iron Falcons, her advice is straightforward: keep going and don’t compare yourself to others.
That mindset is particularly important in a weight room, where athletes can easily become focused on how much someone else is lifting or how quickly someone else is improving. Progress looks different for everyone, and Kent’s experience is a reminder that consistency matters more than comparison.
The benefits of her training have also carried directly onto the softball field.
As a player, Kent has felt the impacts of her experience in the weight room when stepping up to the plate. With greater general strength and agility, she has created more power in her batting stance while allowing herself to be more aggressive when running the bases.
Yet perhaps the most important lesson Kent has taken from her experience is one that extends beyond softball or the Iron Falcon program. For female students who may feel intimidated walking into the weight room, her message is simple: don’t be afraid to take that first step.
“Don’t let the gym intimidate you and never hesitate to ask for help,” she said.
Kent’s journey is a reminder that strength development doesn’t happen overnight. What started as a study break during exam week became a passion, and that passion eventually led to becoming Peddie’s first Iron Falcon of the 2026–27 school year.
For Kent, the Iron Falcon achievement is more than a collection of numbers on a testing sheet. It represents the consistency to keep showing up, the discipline to keep improving and the confidence to see what she is capable of accomplishing.
Sometimes the biggest gains have nothing to do with the number on the bar.