The Road To Health

Truck driving is one of the unhealthiest professions. This man, a driver himself, decided to do something about it

- Siphiwe Baleka, Springfield, Missouri

DID YOU KNOW THAT TRUCK driving is one of the unhealthiest professions in America? Obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, limited physical activity, fewer than six hours of sleep per day… In a national survey, 61 percent of long-haul truck drivers have two or more of these health issues. I know what that’s like because for nearly four years, I was a truck driver myself, for Prime Inc., one of the largest trucking companies in the country.

Now I do something different: I’m the driver health and fitness coach for Prime. I also founded my own company, Fitness Trucking, designing health and fitness programs specifically for the truck driver lifestyle. An unusual occupation, especially for a Yale grad with a philosophy degree. So how did I end up here? I’m kind of surprised myself.

Then again, I’ve never done what was expected.

Not even when I was a kid growing up in Oswego, Illinois. Back then, my name was Tony Blake. My family was the first African-American family in the neighborhood. I always stood out. My dad took what could’ve been a negative situation and encouraged me to turn it into a positive. Being different was my motivation to be the best at everything, from academics to athletics. When Dad saw my competitive fire, he introduced me to a distant cousin, Hayes Jones, who’d won the 110-meter hurdles at the 1964 Olympics.

Hayes let me hold his gold medal, and I thought, I want to win one too. I was good at football and basketball, but I’d never have the size to go far in those sports. I turned my focus to swimming. So what if there had never been an African-American swimmer in the Olympics? I’d be the first! At age 10, I won my first state championship. I kept winning. By the end of high school, I’d grown to 5'8", 140 pounds. Though usually the smallest guy in the pool, I made up for it with intensity and technique.