Paul Beckwith quit his six-figure salary job to open a CrossFit affiliate in South Carolina.
Paul Beckwith made perhaps his greatest impression on the CrossFit stage when he almost ran the Snatch Ladder in the team competition at the South East Regional. The 6-foot-5, 275-pound powerhouse put up the heaviest weight of the day (285 lb.) amid a screaming, boisterous crowd in South Florida.
But his CrossFit legacy continues to grow at Carolina CrossFit, where he’s developed the membership to 450 people.
Five years ago, Beckwith made a $150,000 salary in medical device sales with full benefits and a healthy 401(k). He was supporting a wife and two children, but he decided to drop his lucrative job and open an 800 square-foot CrossFit box with just 20 clients in Columbia, S.C.
“I was terrified,” his wife, Dorothy, says. “With sales, you have a base and then a bonus. With the box, I had no idea what to expect and knew we would be on a substantially limited income — if any extra income to start off with. Having two small children under the age of 4, that was a scary thought.”
But still, they leapt.
“Financially, it was scary, but I never doubted he would be great at training people or building a great community,” Dorothy says.
CrossFit Carolina has become such a large community, it’s outgrown its space three times and Paul is in the midst of looking for a larger location again.
“I doubted more about people buying into this new ‘workout theory,’” Dorothy says. “Now I am more fascinated when I get to watch him compete and how dedicated he is in his training. I enjoy watching his free spirit as he coaches and encourages people.”
CrossFit brought Paul back to his athletic roots, he says. The 37-year-old was a starting lineman for the University of South Carolina football team from 1994-1997. After college, he played briefly on scout teams in the NFL. When that ended, he launched into his career in professional sales. His exercise regimen disappeared and his diet tanked. The next thing he knew, he was pushing the scales at 375 pounds. His traveling schedule was brutal and his health was suffering.
Around that time, a friend asked him to check out CrossFit and try some of the workouts. He looked up CrossFit.com and the workout of the day was Nancy: five rounds for time of a 400-meter run coupled with 15 reps of 95-lb. overhead squats.
Paul did the workout in his front yard and he says it destroyed him. After looking at the comments on the main site, he saw that folks were completing Nancy with times in the teens. It took him 47 minutes.
After his experience with Nancy, Paul says he was eager to improve himself. “It opened my eyes to how bad I was, how out of shape I was,” he says.
He decided to stick with the main site workouts. What kept him engaged were the comments and the comparison of numbers. It provided a sense of community and gave him a measuring stick for improvement.
For even more motivation, he started training with a few friends in his yard. Within a few months, his group grew to 10 to 20 people per workout. So, he decided to lease a small space at the bottom of a law firm so they could get out of his yard. The turning point came in 2007 when he decided to leave his career and open and operate a gym full time. His family thought he was crazy.
"It wasn't that big of a deal for me,” he says. “Everyone else thought I was nuts because I was dropping a $150k job.”
"Paul has this intangible quality. He's effervescent and has a serious passion for what he does, and that makes people want to be better,” senior trainer Megan Keatley, says.
Paul has since dropped 100 pounds and improved his fitness tremendously. Before the South East Regional, he competed in 2010 at the CrossFit/USAW Open in Colorado and placed second with a 264-lb. clean and jerk and 330-lb. snatch, a personal record for Paul.
“Would have taken first had I not choked myself out,” he says. “The bar landed on my artery.”
He is balancing life as a father of three, competitor, box owner who does all the programming and coach.
So as not to neglect his own experience, Paul brought in James Fitzgerald, to provide him with more tools for his athletic and coaching journey.
“I believe that as an athlete, you have to have a coach,” Paul says. “The sport is growing and we want to keep it that way.”
To that end, the Beckwiths are doing their part. Their children are involved in athletics — Margaret Riley, 9, is in gymnastics and dance. Evan, 7, is in karate and basketball, and 3-year-old Greyson “runs the show” at the gym.
“They all do workouts and they enjoy making up their own WODS,” Paul says. “It is not uncommon for us to see Greyson trying to do pull-ups or trying to move barbells around the gym.”
Like father, like son.
