Although the famous Coffee's Gym was home to the women responsible for more than half of all the medals won by American women at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships over a period of decades, he would always deflect any credit on to others.

His involvement in women’s weightlifting was "happenstance" as far as Coffee was concerned, because he opened the famous Coffee's Gym in 1980, the year when the US held its first national championship for females "and women kept coming through the door of the gym because they wanted to learn".

"John would absolutely refuse to be considered one of the pioneers of women’s weightlifting," said Edward Baker, who saw Coffee as a mentor and has set up a gym in Georgia to effectively continue his legacy in the sport.

Coffee said that if the credit belonged to anyone it would be former USA Weightlifting President Murray Levin and Iron Man magazine owner Mabel Rader, who with Judy Glenney - a multiple champion, coach, IWF official and author - did so much to attract women into weightlifting more than 40 years ago.

But in terms of results on the platform, Coffee was out on his own.

The USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame member led his Coffee's Gym team to the US women's team championship 19 times, including 14 in succession after their first success in 1983.

Coffee's Gym trained the athletes responsible for 36 of the first 65 medals won by US women at the IWF World Championships.

His athletes included America's most decorated weightlifter, Robin Goad, who won 20 World Championships medals and set a senior world record in 1991.

He also coached world medallists Colleene Colley, Sibby Flowers and Carla Garrett, and was the biggest influence in the lifting career of Ursula Garza Papandrea, the most highly qualified female coach in the US and now first vice-president of the IWF.

Many of Coffee’s athletes, of which there were thousands, became coaches.

Coffee had been alerted to weightlifting aged eight, when he saw a front-page news story about the feats of the Olympic champion Paul Anderson who, like Coffee, was from Georgia.

He was 12 when he bought his first exercise set from Strength and Health magazine, which was the source of his early learning about technique and training programmes.

Coffee's parents built a shed with a platform in their back yard so he and his friends could train with that exercise set in the late 1950s.

He never reached international level as an athlete and, because of knee trouble, his career ended in 1979, by when he had already been coaching for years.

Coffee studied history at college and was briefly in the National Guard, but weightlifting was his life and he first had a gym, which was unnamed, in 1971.

Before he opened Coffee’s Gym in Marietta, Georgia in 1980, the only way women could compete in weightlifting was alongside men or as "extra" athletes whose results did not count in the competition.

Women's weightlifting was "an idea whose time had come, and I became a little obsessed with it", Coffee said in an interview in 2016.

Baker, who learned lifting and coaching from Coffee, named his set-up Voodoo Weightlifting after Bob Takano, former national coach of the American women's team, said Coffee’s training was like voodoo.

"Bob said John would make decisions out of thin air, like magic, and produce a stream of champions," said Baker.

"John would have a general idea of the goal for a training cycle and would write a plan, but where the magic came in was in giving feedback and observations every day.

"While other coaches are set in stone about which is a heavy day and which is a light day, he was very particular about an athlete's condition on the day.

"Also, a huge principle in John's coaching style was individualisation - he trained every athlete differently.

"What humbled me about him is that he cared about a new athlete just as much as the best lifters in the team. 

"If someone wanted to learn how to snatch and clean and jerk, John wanted to help them.

"The one thing he would truly brag about with his coaching is that under his supervision, no athlete ever sustained an injury in training that required surgery."

Coffee’s own explanation was, "I don’t like to be real formalised about it.

"We train according to the conditions of the day, how they slept the night before, how they feel - I don’t follow any system."

"We make it up as we go, but based on experience. 

"I like to think that what we do is based on what I’ve learned the past 50 years."

Among his favourite lifters in the past were Anderson, Isaac Berger and Tommy Kono, while his number one contemporary athlete was the Russian Tatiana Kashirina.

Kyle Pierce, the renowned international coach who sits on the IWF’s coaching and research committee, said, "I have the most vivid memory of the first time I ever saw John, when he was lifting at the Florida Open in Daytona Beach in 1975.

"He looked awesome, with his long hair and all decked out in a yellow headband and yellow striped high socks - he was sharp."

Despite that image, Coffee was "definitely not a self-promoter", said Pierce.

"He was a humble person, enjoyable to be around, well-read and very knowledgeable about all sorts of things, in and outside of weightlifting, especially history.

"Everybody knew about Coffee’s Gym - so many people trained there from a lot of sports.

"John really gave a great deal to weightlifting."

Coffee had a stroke in October 2016 and had been in poor health for a while.

USA Weightlifting's chief executive Matt Sicchio said, "Our thoughts are with his family, colleagues and the countless lifters he taught along the way.

"I hope those who lost a friend and family member this week take solace in the fact that his legacy lives on through the strength of today’s US women’s team."