2022 Featured Athlete - Jeff Scott

1. Where are you from?  Grand Rapids, MI

2. What brought you to Ithaca? Job (Professor at Cornell)

3. We know that you’re an entomologist, but what does that entail? I am in the Entomology Department, but am actually more of a toxicologist.  My lab studies the interactions of insects and insecticides.

4. What’s your favorite part of your job? Solving a mystery/figuring out how things work.

5. Do you have a favorite bug? Probably hard to answer, so a few choices would work.  A dead one (I’m a toxicologist after all)

6. What has been your greatest accomplishment at work?  Training of many graduate students

7. Has work brought you to a location in the world that was memorable?  I have had the opportunity to visit many places.  Most memorable was probably Okinawa, Japan, although we lived in Montpellier France for some months and that was great.

8. What brought you to CrossFit Pallas?  For a long time I thought it would be too hard.  One day, curiosity got the better of me.  I have tried multiple gyms and boxes, but Pallas is simply the best.

9. What are some CF goals you’ve crossed off the list? Do the Open RX (first time in 2022).  Kick up to the wall

10. What are some future goals you have? Do better in the Open in 2023, double unders, maybe butterfly pull-ups.

11. Barbell or dumbell?  Barbell

12. Rowing or running?  Running.  And why is this never an even in the Open??

13. Push-ups or pull-ups?   Push-ups.

14. If you could write a wod, what would it look like?  Something like a Murph.

15. Do you have a favorite author or series?   A. C. Clarke (Sci Fi)

16. What’s your favorite season and what do you like to do during that season?  Summer is best.  Long days, no real weather limitations. Gardening and kayaking.

17. What’s your favorite homemade dinner?  Tuffoli (see the wonderful cookbook that Laurie made if you want the recipe)

18. What’s your favorite restaurant and what’s your go to meal?  Pretty partial to the filet mignon at Texas roadhouse.

19. What’s your favorite dessert? Chocolate molten cake

20. How do you find motivation? Curiosity is a motivation at work.  For the gym it would be the desire to stay fit so that I can maintain my quality of life.  Sadly age is not just a number.

21. What do you do for self care outside of the gym?  Try to eat right (Shout out to Coach Donna for the helpful nutrition help)

22.  Do you have any guilty pleasures?  Bourbon, scotch and Irish whiskey

23. What’s a fact about yourself that not many know?  I set the Jr. High School record for sit-ups (111 in 2 min). 

24. Do you have any hidden talents?  Solving mazes

25. What’s your favorite thing about Ithaca) The quality of life.  The city is big enough to have interesting things going on, small enough to not have big city problems and we have great schools.

26. What would you say to someone hesitant about starting CrossFit?  Don’t be.  Every single level of fitness is welcome here and every workout has an option that everyone can do.  The only person judging you is you, so check your ego at the door and have some fun.

Tim Paulson