Lafayette.

His story

What the pictures add up to.

Drake came to Lafayette from Houma at nineteen — a Marine Corps reservist chasing a professional fighting career, with his fiancée, now his wife, beside him.

Training MMA under Damon is what brought him to this floor. Damon needed help with the Train Unique MMA program, and Drake — punching a clock full-time at a warehouse — wanted his days to mean something more. He joined the MMA team and studied nights to become a certified personal trainer and nutritionist.

He's coached full time since October 2023, and he'll tell you plainly what it did: it gave him purpose that reached every corner of his life. When his sons were born, he retired from professional fighting to pour himself into his family and his athletes.

The fighter left the cage. The coach stayed on the floor.

Ask Drake what keeps him here and he doesn't talk about workouts. He talks about watching people overcome, every single day — and about doing hard things himself so his athletes believe it can be done.

The story you tell yourself
doesn't have to be true.

Her story

Called to this floor.

Emily is from Henry, Louisiana, and her faith is the center of everything here. She'll tell you plainly: all she does is for Him. Sunday mornings she sings in the choir at Mass, and she's part of the Our Lady of Lourdes Ladies Auxiliary.

She came to Train Unique in January 2020 as a college intern and never left. She knew she wanted to coach — she just didn't want to spend a career in a regular gym. She graduated from UL that year with a degree in kinesiology.

She's a powerlifter, and a serious one: competing since 2016, twice on the international stage, fourth at bench worlds in 2025, and twice at the Arnold Sports Festival. The bar she coaches is a bar she's lifted.

She married Jessie in 2022. Their first daughter, Ruth, was born in June 2026.

Ask her about the athletes and she reaches for the same words every time: God calls us to love and give to everyone. This is her flock — the people she was called to guide — and she counts it a blessing to wake up and work with them.

God calls us to love and give to everyone.
This is my flock.

His story

Trust the plan.

Jessie Badeaux grew up in New Iberia and graduated from Westgate High School, where he found sports and, through sports, powerlifting. He went straight to UL for kinesiology and joined the UL powerlifting team. That's where he met Coach Shannon, Coach Madison (now on the Baton Rouge floor), and Coach Emily, who is now his wife.

He started with Damon about six years ago and didn't plan to. He was bringing Emily to her internship here and helping out while he waited. It turned into volunteering, then into something he looked forward to, and then Damon asked if he wanted to be hired. He was studying fitness at UL, so it felt right. Today he's the head coach.

Ask what drives him and he'll tell you it's his faith. He's a Catholic man, and this is work where faith has a lot of places to go. The reward is the smile on an athlete's face when a barrier breaks, one they thought they'd never reach. Some people see a diagnosis as a curse or a burden. He sees it as a gift, a wellspring of hope and joy, sometimes a challenge, sometimes a second chance at life. God has a plan for everyone, he says, and when we trust that plan, life gets easier and we can do unimaginable things.

Off the floor he's a competitive powerlifter, ten years in. It's taken him across the country and around the world: national meets, where he's a national champion; the Arnold Sports Festival; a meet in Norway; and the biggest one, the World Games in Chengdu, China.

When we trust that plan,
we can do unimaginable things.

Her story

Proved her wrong.

Elizabeth Blum was born and raised in Lafayette. Her parents knew early that something was different. She couldn't give people eye contact, and she didn't start talking until she was almost four. In the late '80s and early '90s a lot of people believed girls couldn't have autism, so the diagnosis, autism and ADHD, didn't come until she was ten.

Her parents never gave up on her: therapy, and the same expectations as everyone else. In middle school a speech therapist told them, with Elizabeth in the room, that she would never graduate from high school or college or have a normal life. She graduated from high school. Then she earned two college degrees, an associate's from South Louisiana Community College in 2008 and a bachelor's from UL Lafayette in 2012. In 2011 she was a presenter at the Louisiana Spectrum and Related Disabilities Conference. Her words: she proved her wrong.

Running started at Lafayette High her sophomore year, with bad form and something like a twenty-minute mile. A coach saw potential, taught her how to run, and she ended up the third-fastest girl on the team. Since then: one 50k ultramarathon, ten marathons, and somewhere around thirty half marathons. She lost count. In January she finished the Dopey Challenge at Walt Disney World, a twenty-year dream: four days of running, back to back. Three miles, six, thirteen, then the full 26.2.

She spent ten years at Geaux Run by Fleet Feet, the running store, then a year as a physical therapy technician, and joined Train Unique as a coach in 2025. She knows the athlete's side of the room because she's lived it.

Off the floor she reads, gardens, travels, loves all things Disney, and draws and paints, mostly nature. The two pieces below are hers; the fjord came out of a trip to Norway, a place she says was so peaceful she'd love to go back one day. She's working on getting a children's book published, and she does inspirational speaking.

Told she'd never graduate.
Two college degrees.

His story

Hard things, on purpose.

Garret Cantu has a master's degree in psychology and more than five years of coaching behind him. He got into training because he wanted to help people reach what they're capable of, and he'll tell you plainly what he believes: everyone has the ability to do hard things, and to push themselves toward the best version of who they are.

The pictures show what that looks like on the floor: a number on the chalkboard, a flex at the mural on the way out.

Off the floor he's a touring musician and an independent professional wrestler. He wants a belt in his wrestling promotion and an international tour with his band, and he says so out loud.

Everyone has the ability
to do hard things.

Her story

Made for this.

Shannon started working with people with disabilities in 2020, and it happened by accident. A family friend needed a caregiver for her daughter, school was out for Covid, and Shannon said yes because she had nothing better to do. Very quickly the mom, Mrs. Kari, told her: Shannon, this is what you were made to do.

She kept hearing it for the next six years. From parents at the summer camp where she worked two summers. From her adapted physical education professor. From a coworker at a downtown restaurant who talked her into applying for an ABA technician job, which she did for almost three years.

The fitness side was always there. She played sports her whole life, moved to Lafayette for college, and tried to stay in shape on her own until she walked into the UL powerlifting room on a whim. She walked out two years later having competed at collegiate nationals. That's also where she met Coach Emily, Coach Jessie, and Coach Madison, who's now in Baton Rouge.

All of it led here. The work she's good at and the fitness she loves finally have one title: Coach.

Off the floor: her dog Snoop Doggie, cooking, making art, playing guitar, and this year rugby, a half marathon, and a Hyrox. On the floor: dancing, cheering on her athletes, and having the time of her life.

Shannon, this is what
you were made to do.