Local helps college team win national title

South Terrebonne graduate and Bourg native Phillip Labat is officially one of the strongest college students in the country.

He used that brute strength to help himself and his teammates become national champions.

In his second year with the University of Louisiana-Lafayette’s powerlifting team, Labat was a point winner for the Ragin’ Cajuns in the USA Collegiate Powerlifting Championships on April 1-2 in Scranton, Pa.

His fifth place finish in the 181-pound weight division put points on the board for his team in what eventually became their second-ever national championship.

“We had a great time,” Labat said. “It was fun. That’s why we do it – because we enjoy it. To go out there and win, that was just extra.”

The way scoring for the event works is simple. Each team assigns six of its lifters to become “point getters” for the team. For ULL, Labat was one of the six. The higher a lifter finishes in an event, the more points he accumulates for his team.

The Ragin’ Cajuns outlasted Texas and LSU with 63 total points to take home the moniker of National Champions.

The Longhorns finished with 55 total points, the Tigers just 51.

That marked the second time in the school’s history that ULL won the national title.

“We have a pretty good team and a pretty established program with our powerlifting,” Labat said. “They had a lot of different schools. There was like Navy, Air Force, Penn State. LSU was out there. Basically all of the big schools that have a powerlifting team. All of these schools come out and you basically just go out and compete. And we were able to edge them all out and come out on top.”

The love for competition is what led Labat to the sport.

As a multi-sport athlete at South Terrebonne, the son of Gators’ athletic director Francis Labat said he learned quickly that he had an affinity for working out.

“I always thought that training for the sport was sometimes more fun than playing the sport itself,” Labat said. “I always enjoyed working out a lot.”

So with his love for physical fitness, Labat enrolled at ULL after his prep graduation with ambitions of becoming a personal trainer or strength coach.

He recalls working out one day when an impressed set of eyes asked him what he called a “random question.”

“There’s this guy who walks by who was on the powerlifting team at UL, who’s like, ‘Hey, you look pretty strong. You ever thought about coming out for the team?'” Labat said. “So I told him ‘maybe so’, but I ended up going out and now, this is my second year doing it and I couldn’t imagine being away from it now. I enjoy doing it and I just like the competition.”

In Labat’s freshman year, he also advanced to the USA Collegiate Championships, where he finished in 11th place.

This year, he catapulted into the Top 5 and also improved the total weight he can lift.

He added that he hoped to do better, but lost too much weight and ultimately strength in his preparation for the event.

“I think it was 75-100 pounds maybe. It wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it was going to be,” Labat said.

With two full seasons to compete for the Ragin’ Cajuns, Labat said he will continue to train and continue to improve on his current personal bests.

The sophomore touts a 405-pound bench press, a 572-pound squat and a 577-pound dead lift.

He said his offseason goals aren’t very complex, he just wants to be able to lift more weight, while also keeping himself at 181 pounds.

“Just get stronger. There’s not a real big method to it. The goal is just to keep going up in weight [on the bar],” Labat said. “I don’t want to gain too much [body] weight. I want to stay around the same weight and try to get as strong as I can.”

If he succeeds, Labat just might reach his ultimate goal of becoming both an individual and a team national champion.

Either way, he just loves training and says he truly loves what he does.

“It’s just a cool organization. It’s no big NCAA huge thing or event,” Labat said. “It’s not like LSU football or anything like that, but a lot of big colleges have powerlifting teams and it’s very competitive. It’s still a club sport, but it’s becoming really big. So we have a national championship just like every other sport. … It’s awesome to be able to call yourself a national champion. Myself and my teammates are very proud to have accomplished this goal.”

University of Louisiana-Lafayette powerlifter Phillip Labat attempts a dead lift at the USA Collegiate Powerlifting Championship in April. Labat finished fifth in the 181-pound weight division and his points helped the Ragin’ Cajuns win the national title. PHOTO PROVIDED BY LABAT FAMILY