Stacey Pillari’s resume could fill several pages, but the job that counts right now is weightlifting coach at Key West High School. (She’s also a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Schmitt.) This year’s team roster at KWHS includes 25 girls — the most ever in the program’s four-year history. Seniors Marina Goins and Chloe Knowles have been there since the start, when both were freshmen.
“We thought weightlifting would make us stronger for softball,” Knowles said about why the two decided to take up the school’s newest sport.
Last year, Goins was the district and regional champion and placed fifth at the state level in the 169-pound weight class.
“They’re what I want the other girls to strive for,” Pillari said. “I want to make these young women as strong as possible physically and mentally in hopes that this will help them with everything they do in life and give them the confidence to do whatever their goals and dreams may be.”
The preseason started Oct. 11, while the first meet is Wednesday, Nov. 3 at Marathon.
Marathon and Coral Shores have boys and girls weightlifting teams, while Key West has only a girls team. “It’s a shame not to have a boys team, but it’s a Title IX thing,” said Pillari. “There has to be an equal number of sports for the boys and the girls. Adding a boys team would put that out of sync.”
Before she was a coach, Pillari was a professional and competitive bodybuilder with the impressive photos to prove it. “I competed for several years and I coached a team of bodybuilders,” she recalls. “I started exercising by lifting weights when I was 15.”
Now 56, she retired as a competitor in 2012.
Pillari is married with a son, Domenic Pillari, who is her assistant weightlifting coach. She was born in Durham, North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina.
She has worked as a personal trainer. She played flag football. She was a hurdler, a diver and a cheerleader and the only girl in a high school fitness class. Pillari also owned a therapeutic horse farm in North Carolina, where she worked with autistic children.
Upon moving to the Florida Keys, Pillari volunteered to take care of the horses for the Key West Police Department’s Mounted Patrol Unit, and even accompanied them to Orlando during Hurricane Irma.
She also lived for a while in Panama, where she owned a farm and taught bodybuilding.
Pillari has competed in powerlifting, fitness competitions and, of course, bodybuilding with the International Federation of Body Builders, winning numerous awards.
“All along, I coached, never stopped coaching,” she said.
But that’s not all. She was a blues singer who opened for the Neville Brothers 20 years ago. At one point, she had her own line of clothing, and she authored a children’s book, “Nana’s Year of the Wild and Crazy Animal Adventures.”
Talk about girl power.
Football: Conchs score early, but lose to Killian
Key West High’s football team scored early, but the Conchs lost, 46-7 on Oct. 9 at Miami Killian against the powerful Cougars, ranked third among the state’s 5A teams. Key West was ranked 36th and will face 49th-ranked Jackson (2-4) at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 15 at Miami.
Key West turned the ball over three times at Killian, but gained a respectable 234 yards, while
giving up 348 to the unbeaten Cougars. The Conchs are 3-4.
