Keeping His Community Strong

There are a million ways you can serve your community. Some of them carry more weight than others. In the case of Scott Safe, Manager of Vasa-Spring Garden Insurance in Cannon Falls, Minn., that’s quite literally true.

Safe spent 30 years serving Cannon Falls High as its strength coach, shepherding generations of student athletes through the school’s weight room, helping them develop balance, coordination, and flexibility, as well as strength and power.

“You don’t need to be the most gifted athlete for weight training to be a benefit to you,” Safe said. “No matter what sport you’re involved in, it can improve your performance.”

Safe emphasizes that the benefits of weightlifting carry over when a kid sets down the barbell, too.

“Strength training is the best anti-depression program there is for kids,” Safe said. “It’s such a gift when we show them how to train. We take troubled kids, work with them, and after a while, they significantly improve. I get tons of calls from parents and teachers, telling me they see the progress, and honestly, that’s the best feeling.

“You watch them gain self-respect, and that flows over into everything else. In the weight room, no one is better than anyone else. The barbell doesn’t [care] who you are. We give kids all kinds of opportunities to succeed. And that just builds. Really, it’s a terrific program for any kid.”

Safe’s involvement in weight training goes back to his own teenage years, when he discovered the sport and began competing in power-lifting competitions. In addition to his work with kids in his hometown, he was one of the co-founders of the Minnesota Weightlifting Association. Weight training is also a family affair: Safe has trained his children and his grandchildren. And his wife Brenda still competes.

“My kids did the program with me and that was a lot of fun,” he said. “And my grandkids have both done a couple of meets.” He recalls an especially gratifying competition when he was in the audience to watch one of his grandsons. “Holy cow,” Safe said. “He was all of six or seven, and no one could believe it when he walked out there and did a snatch and clean-and-jerk.”

While he’s no longer the head strength coach for the high school, he still helps out with the program. And though at 63 he doesn’t train as intensely as in former years, he still works out four days a week.

“I don’t do the Olympic movements anymore,” he said. “My flexibility could be better. But I still squat and bench press, I still do Romanian dead lifts.

And when he hits the gym, he never lacks for company.

“Cannon Falls kids all have calloused hands from working out,” Safe said. “It’s amazing to watch them grow. It’s not about being naturally gifted as an athlete, It’s about how you improve. That’s what I want to see.”

10/2025