June Featured Athlete - William Maxwell

1. Where are you from?

Born in Philly, came to Ithaca in 1952

2. What do you do for a living or what did you do for a living?

1961-1998 Professor of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Cornell. 1988-1998 co-founder of CWay. Summers of 2003-2018 supervisor and head lifeguard at Alex Haley Pool across from GIAC.

3. What brought you into CrossFit Pallas?

A debilitating hospital stay precipitated a need for restoring my strength to continue lifeguarding.

4. How long have you been doing CrossFit for?

Since spring of 2014

5. How many CrossFit Opens have you done?

2015 and 2018. In 2018 there were eight people in their 80s. I was the oldest and one of two that did all 5 workouts.

6. What do you like to do when you’re not at the gym?

Spent time with my bride of 49 years, volunteer activities

7.  What’s your favorite CrossFit movement?

Back squat – proud that at my age I can squat

8. What’s your least favorite CrossFit movement?

Burrpee  - no other animal in the world would submit themselves to this movement

9. Do you have a favorite CrossFitter?

Tim in motion

10. If you could sit down and have dinner with any celebrity who would it be?

Barack Obama

11. What do you do for self-care?

Very active in volunteer work.

12. Do you have any pets?

Wife has a cat

13. What’s your greatest CrossFit achievement?

First pullup in my life at age 79.

14. What is a CrossFit goal that you have?

TTB once

15. What’s something that not a lot of people know about you?

In 1956 I was a factory certified Porsche mechanic.

16. What your favorite season?

Fall

17. What’s your favorite restaurant?

Saigon Kitchen

18. What’s your favorite meal to cook?

Spanish rice

19. Wine/liquor/beer/cider or neither?

At one time any and many, now none.

20. What would you tell someone hesitant about starting CrossFit?

Every activity can be scaled to an individual’s ability, the workouts are carefully planned, the trainers have that “critical eye” necessary for safety and improvement, and the comradery beats working alone in a weight room or on a bunch of machines.

The picture is from Antarctica in 2010.  We visited an island with over 100,000 penguins.