It's been 10 years since Chad Gerhard graduated from Weatherly Area High School and made a long challenging climb from there to a 9,000-foot-high mountaintop in Sochi, Russia.

"I'll never forget getting there and going to the top of the mountain range, looking down at the Black Sea," Gerhard said, speaking to Weatherly Area School District students during an assembly held in his honor Monday."I'll never forget the emotion, knowing that I'd be watching athletes that I'd personally trained compete in the Olympics, to be a part of something that big, watching them compete for the love of their sport and for their country."Gerhard, who now lives in Park City, Utah, is the strength and conditioning coach for the U.S. Snowboard Half-pipe and U.S. Aerials Olympic team. The son of Bill and Donna Gerhard, he is the high-performance laboratory manager for the team.The Weatherly Wreckers Booster Club, led by Corey Gerhart, and the Student Government Association combined funds to fly Gerhard home to Weatherly for the school's annual sports banquet last weekend. Gerhard stayed to talk to students during two special assemblies Monday morning.He also used the trip home to propose to Weatherly native Lauren Hinkle, taking her to the borough's Tweedle Park, which was the site of their first kiss. He tossed her a basketball, which had the words "Marry me" on it. She accepted.During the assembly, high school Principal Stu Tripler remembered Gerhard as "a good student, a good athlete, who likes to have fun.""Listen to what he says, and practice what he says," Tripler advised. "And perhaps you too will achieve what he has done."Gerhard played a video of Olympic moments featuring the athletes he saw on a daily basis. He said that before working with them, he hadn't really considered what their lives were like."The world only sees what they do for one month, every four years," Gerhard said. "I never realized until working with the athletes the struggles they go through on a daily basis, when no one's watching."Gerhard is no stranger to struggles. He told the students of his high school days and "not knowing what I was going to do" and his academic troubles in college until his focus changed to exercise science classes. Out of college, he landed a good job, but left it to take an unpaid internship working with Olympic athletes in Utah.For several months he slept in his jeep, and co-workers woke him by tapping on the window. He didn't know anyone in Utah, but he worked hard and proved his worth."I was a big fish in a little pond in Weatherly, where people knew who I was," Gerhard said. "In Utah I was a little fish in a big pond, and there were people who were smarter than me and had been doing things longer."It was all up to me to be successful," he said. "I was just like every one of you guys you have to learn to stay positive, and not let challenges get in your way."