The track and field season is rolling along. It is hard to believe that the indoor season is already over. In one of our last indoor meets, we made the trip down south to Charleston and let me tell you, since I've seen the blue track, I've got the fever! All I can think about is that gorgeous blue track and doing whatever it takes to get my athletes down there. In my first blog of the track season, I stated that I had a couple of guys with a long shot at state in the jumps, but none the less a shot. After indoor season, this has stayed true but I have a firm belief that at least one of my jumpers will make state. Like every team, my team is full of athletes with amazing stories. I'd love to tell you every single story but I don't think too many people would read all of it so instead I'll give a couple stories of my jumpers.
The blue track of EIU is the most appealing track in the state
One of my jumpers is super smart 16 year old senior David Latimore III who scored a 33 on his ACT. Last year one of David's friends was high jumping with me and he was struggling to scissor kick 5'0." In between attempts, I half jokingly said hey David why don't you show your friend how it's done and scissor kick this bar. Much to my surprise, he said ok I'll try. He lined up, ran kind of awkwardly towards the bar and then proceeded to absolutely sky it! I looked at David and said you're a jumper now. David had freakish raw jumping ability with untapped potential. Previously he was a below average 400 runner who didn't know he could jump! David only long jumped at 4 meets last year going 17'10", 18'11", 19'3" and finally a huge 21'0" at the sectional meet. He struggled a lot more in high jump going 5'6", 5'6", 5'8" and a no height. I knew good things were to come this year when he nearly beat his high jump PR from last year in practice scissor kicking 5'7" one day. In his first meet this year, he long jumped 21'4" and high jumped 6'0", both huge PR's! He is still very raw but for a 16 year old kid who has been jumping for a little over a year I'd say it's not too bad. I'm excited to see how David develops as a jumper this year and hope that he will get an opportunity to compete on the blue track!
Another one of my jumpers with a great story is sophomore
Tyler Hoosman. Last year, Tyler barely made our team. He was the slowest guy on
the team. But, his brother was a superstar running back and also a member of
our 20/40 [foot] LJ/TJ club and his father was an almost 25-foot long jumper in
college. Tyler worked really hard and while he didn't get a lot of
opportunities to jump, he went from jumping 13'2" on his worst day to jumping
16'8" at the last meet of the season last year. He really embraced the technique
and quickly became one of my most technical jumpers despite not being one of my
best jumpers. This year, Tyler is no longer slow. In fact, he's faster than me.
At our fresh-soph home meet this year, where Tyler jumped 15'1" last year, Tyler
“shocked the world" by winning the meet on the final jump of the competition
jumping 19'1." After the meet, I told him I expect him to keep this pace up so
that by his senior year, he'll be a 27-foot jumper, ha!
Sophomore Tyler Hoosman (left), myself (middle) and Nico Capezio (right)
Last year I watched a freshman named Nico Capezio bound during his sprint warm up and I thought to myself, that kid is a jumper. After practice, I asked him to come join the jumpers. He immediately turned it down, said he wasn't interested in jumping. I kept on him though and eventually convinced him to just come try a jumps practice. A couple weeks later, in his first time long jumping, Nico set our freshman indoor record jumping 20'0." I asked him after the meet if he believed me now that he was a jumper, he said yes but he didn't say it like he believed it. I think he believes it now after becoming the 2nd person in school history to join the 20/40/6 [foot] LJ/TJ/HJ club and he did that as a freshman. The most impressive of those was high jumping 6'0" as Nico is only 5'5." Now in his sophomore season, I have large expectations for the explosive “short kid." Nico has been injured most of this season but we're looking forward to getting him back healthy for outdoors. Despite being injured, Nico is a great competitor and has battled through to go 19'8" in long jump and 39'7" in triple jump and score some big points in meets where we needed them.
It hasn't been all happy times for the jumps squad at Plainfield North though. Tyler's brother who I had expected to contribute in a big way injured his knee so he wasn't able to do track and field this year. My two top freshman jumpers made the worst decision of their life and quit, hopefully they'll realize this and be back next year. One of my top high jumpers broke his wrist after falling while running backwards. My two top triple jumpers have been dealing with shin splints so they haven't really gotten to jump much. If you're a coach, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. But, we make changes, we adapt and we get the guys back to 100% and competing at their best. Our jump squad is picking up steam and it's been fun to watch the changes in just my 2nd season at North. I'm looking forward to seeing who breaks out in the outdoor season!