This season’s theme for the The Biggest Loser is "Glory Days" - athletes trying to regain at least part of their former athletic prowess. Among them is recent Western New England Head Coach Rob Guiry. A former player for the Springfield Rifles men’s club, Guiry coached WNE until he had to step down to take a spot on Loser. Why did he want to be on the show? Well, for a start, he weight almost 500 pounds.

 

Guiry started playing for the Rifles while attending WNE, lining up at prop. When he graduated, he stayed on campus to pursue his MBA, and had a choice to make - keep playing or coach the WNE team.

 

“I thought the college needed me more,” Guiry told Goff Rugby Report. “We didn’t have a coach at the time and I thought I could help the program.”

 

But with coaching and working and graduate school, healthy eating and exercise took a back seat.

 

“I’ve never really developed healthy habits through my life,” Guiry confessed. “I’ve always played sports to temper the impact of the fact that I would eat like crap all the time. Once I stopped playing it escalated my weight gain.”

 

And it weighed on him. Pushing well past 400 pounds Guiry didn’t like what was happening.

 

“As a coach you want to be the best coach possible just as when you are a player you want to be the best player possible. And I felt like a hypocrite when I would lead my players through conditioning drills and I was standing there at 500 pounds. So I really knew I needed to do something to change my life, be healthier, be a better coach and get back to playing the sport I love.”

 

The day he got his MBA, Guiry interviewed with producers from The Biggest Loser, and since then has been working to lose weight and get healthy. He went into seclusion - as do all of the contestants - at a ranch in California, working with coaches and competing to stay in the competition.

 

Each week, contestants who are at the low end of percentage of body weight are at risk of going home. However, no one is completely out of the competition. Those sent home can still work on their own to shoot for a $100,000 prize, while those left at The Ranch can shoot for a $250,000 prize. The Glory Days season contestants include former Olympic gold medalists, NFL players, and other international athletes. Guiry said he felt lucky to be a part of it all. The contestants work with coaches who put them through challenges and training sessions to work on their fitness and get them to a healthier weight. Guiry's coach is Dolvett Quince and the two have had an interesting relationship.

"From the beginning I would question everything he did," said Guiry. "Part of it was trying to learn, and part was me being the coach and having my own thoughts and opinions. It was defintely a process for me to adjust to being coached, but once we figured each other out, it worked out. He is a great coach and a friend for the rest of my life."

 

With contestants now back home, all are trying to get back into their regular lives, but also shoot for the prize in January. Guiry got back in contact with his old team.

 

“They went through the fall without a coach, which was really hard to hear about, but things are going well,” he said. “They experienced some growing pains going into DII from NSCRO [the Small College division] and we knew this would also be a rebuilding year. But they competed and they have a coach in place now and I am pleased about that.”

 

Guiry remains in California working full-time trying to lose as much weight as possible and win the show (no spoilers, we don’t know if he gets sent home or stays through until the finales). But he also has a soft spot in his heart for the Western New England program.

 

“I am excited to see how they go. I was very, very, very lucky to coach the young men that I did. They really respected me and didn’t question me on much, and we worked together and I let my captains do a lot of decision-making.They recognized that what I was asking them to do was in their best interest.”

 

And they have backed their old coach in his decision to join The Biggest Loser.  

 

“The amount of support I have received has been almost overwhelming,” said Guiry. “I’ve never been a guy who put myself out there in this sort of fashion, and it’s great to see I have all this support and people rooting for me. There are definitely points where you question it this the right thing to do? How am I going to be perceived on the show? But I also knew that if I didn’t make the changes I would be dead before 30.”