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One Dream: How Cole Haist Trained His Way to Playing College Basketball
When Cole Haist walked into PowerStrength for his athletic assessment, he was asked a simple question.
What’s your goal?
Cole didn’t hesitate.
“My goal was to play as high-level college basketball as I possibly could.”
Cole was the quarterback on the football team, point guard in basketball, and he played baseball in the spring.
At the time, he was a Sophomore at Big Rapids High School — just over 50 miles north of Grand Rapids — trying to keep up with Varsity kids who were bigger, stronger, and faster than he was.
What happened over the next two and a half years turned that goal into reality.
Now, Cole Haist has signed to play basketball at Davenport University.
WHERE IT STARTED
Cole first heard about PowerStrength when he was in middle school. His AAU basketball team — the Grand Rapids Storm — had PowerStrength come in and run a few sessions with the group.
Something stuck.
“From the very get-go, we just liked what we saw,” his mom, Jessica, recalled. “It was very much about the whole athlete and making the kids feel confident in what they were doing.”
Jessica knows the athlete development world better than most parents. She’s the head girls varsity basketball coach at Big Rapids — and an assistant on the boys varsity team. She’s seen what good training looks like, and what it isn’t.
But it wasn’t until his Sophomore year that Cole committed to attending regularly.
That Winter, playing up on the Varsity basketball team, he started noticing the gap.
“When I was playing with the varsity kids, you still noticed a little difference between those senior kids and me,” Cole said. “So we decided we were going to come down here before travel basketball picked up and try to really change my body before my junior year.”
The drive from Big Rapids is about 45 minutes each way. For a three-sport athlete with practices, games, and AAU basketball filling the calendar, fitting training in wasn’t easy.
Cole did it anyway.
MORE THAN SIZE
The changes came quickly — and they weren’t just what he expected.
“Within a month or two of training here, I saw it,” Cole said. “Just the confidence, but also the way your body changes shape. Not as much that I gained a ton of weight, but more the way the weight on my body shifted in different spots and helped me in different spots.”
His mom saw it too — and she noticed it showing up in competition in ways that surprised her.
“You really noticed it when he ran the ball,” Jessica said. “They were not able to pull him down. He was getting places he hadn’t gotten before. And as a point guard on the basketball team, that strength — he got to the rim when he wanted to in a way that he hadn’t before.”
Over his final two seasons, Cole was named All-Conference in football in 2024 and 2025. He earned All-Conference honors in baseball in 2026. In basketball — his first love — he was named All-Conference and All-State in both years as well.
The physical foundation he built made all of it possible.
BUILT FOR THREE SPORTS
Training a three-sport athlete isn’t simple.
Each sport pulls the body in different directions. The demands of a football season are different from basketball season, which are different from those of baseball. Getting stronger for one sport while staying healthy for the others requires a level of individualization that most programs don’t offer.
It’s what Cole — and his mom — noticed most about PowerStrength. And coming from a coach, her perspective carries weight.
“We do our in-season lifting with all of our teams,” Jessica said. “But what we found that was different about PowerStrength was that it was about Cole and what he needed — not just a one-size-fits-all training. They knew him. They knew what he wanted to get out of the training, and they helped him get there.”
Cole felt it in how his sessions were adjusted depending on the time of year.
“When I would come in during baseball season, it’d be: ‘Cole, how’s your arm feeling?’ And if my arm was sore, we’d do something to work the mobility of that,” he said. “But because basketball has always been my number one, we always made sure to get some kind of jumps in, or some kind of legs, something that translates to that. They did a great job making sure I was overall strong enough for all three sports.”
During the season, Cole prioritized Saturday training sessions when weekday practices made it hard to get in.
During the summers, he pushed harder.
“Those summers are really where I made the decision to push myself and get down here two to three times a week and get as many training sessions in as possible,” he said.
THE MENTAL SIDE
The physical gains were real. But for Cole and his family, the more important shift was something harder to measure.
“Mostly it was just the confidence,” Jessica said. “We just noticed he carried himself differently, and he felt better about what he was doing. I can’t say how important that is to an athlete on the playing field.”
Cole described it the same way.
“The confidence on the field and on the court — more or less the fact that you have the belief now that you put in the work, you put in the time, that you belong. You are as good, if not better, than the competition, and you put in the time to do that.”
That belief didn’t come from nowhere. It came from being tested, session after session, and finding out he could handle it.
“You’re going to get everything you have in you, out of you,” Cole said of the coaching at PowerStrength. “And when you get done, you’re like, man, I felt like I got better today.”
THE DREAM
Cole always knew which sport he wanted to pursue.
He had interest from other programs in football and baseball — but basketball was always the answer.
“Basketball has been my favorite. I always knew that’s the one I wanted to play.”
When he visited Davenport University and met the coaching staff, he knew he’d found his home.
“Davenport really felt like the right fit. Once I went on my visit, those coaches were amazing, and I just knew right then that’s where I wanted to go.”
Looking back, Cole is clear about the role PowerStrength played in making that moment possible.
“I’ve dreamed since I was a kid to be a Division I or Division II basketball player, and I got to reach that goal. Without PowerStrength, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. The physicality, the quickness, the explosiveness — all of that happened because I came to PowerStrength.”
WHAT HE’D TELL YOU
Cole knows the skeptics. He’s heard the arguments — skill training over strength training, especially for basketball players. He was never the quickest, tallest, or fastest kid on the floor.
So he made a different decision.
“I made it my thing that I was going to be as strong as I possibly could, so I could try to be the strongest on the floor,” he said. “When you’re strong, you get to your spots, you get your shot off, you finish, you play defense. That muscle you build in the weight room — it translates to all of it.”
His advice to younger athletes thinking about getting started?
“Don’t think about it. Just get in there and get going. You always get a little nervous trying something new, but these trainers and coaches and all the kids in here — they’re all welcoming, because we’re all in here for the same goal: to get as good as we can.”
His mom echoes the same message to other parents.
“He became better at his craft when he became a better athlete. It’s worth every penny to give your athlete that confidence and the skills needed to take it to the next level.”
GET STARTED AT POWERSTRENGTH
3rd–12th grade athletes of all sports and abilities can sign up at PowerStrength at any time while spots remain. Choose the PowerStrength location most convenient for you – Alpine, Kentwood, Jenison, Plainfield, Holland, or Byron Center.
Visit powerstrengthpro.com/athlete/contact to learn more or click below to schedule your assessment and get started.