Morning Beast Squad

Michelle Perea & Yanira Matute
BMHS PrideTime Reporter and Editor

Before students walk in at 7a.m., seven male teachers get together in the morning for four days each week to workout before they go and teach. They call themselves “The Morning Beast Squad.” The members are: Quieroga, LaPrad, Dustin, Cross, Carroll, Ingalls, and sometimes Konopka. For almost two years now, all of them meet up at 6 a.m and workout until 7.

The beginning of the squad started almost 4 years ago when Carroll started teaching at McMahon. Quieroga and Carroll started carpooling to school together since they live close to each other and he naturally joined Dustin and Quieroga for their morning workout.

Shortly after, LaPrad and Ingalls joined them. This year, Cross and Konopka joined the crew.

Queiroga, as LaPrad said, is the “founding father” and is the one that helps decide which workouts to do for that morning.

To get them ready for the workouts for the next day, Quieroga goes over the plans with them the night before. “We now have a group chat where I text the workouts to them the night before and we do them the next morning. I record all of our stats.”

Because Quieroga doesn’t have much time after school to work out, he feels like the only time he could get his workouts in are in the morning.

Not only do these men use this time to workout on themselves, but they use it as a bonding moment. For them, this is a time to get together and exercise before school begins instead of heading to an actual gym as LaPrad and Ingalls used to do.

The purpose of setting this up was to be able to get exercise before starting the day. The weight room is an easy access and allows them to work on different machines. They also head outside on the track. They don’t have to worry about being late to work because they’re already there.

Alongside exercise, they have gotten closer together and have created stronger friendships over the mornings spent together.  “Using this, we’ve definitely bonded quite a bit and we hang out more together outside of work also,” added LaPrad.