On Thursday, March 5, at 11:15 am, I signed up for my final season of Track & Field.
Track & Field has been a part of my life since eighth grade, which is when I had teachers, friends, and even my parents encourage me to at least give it a try, as I hadn’t done a sport up to that point.
I went into the season not knowing what to expect. I had never heard of Track & Field before, which made me start looking it up on my school Chromebook and finding events like shotput, discus, and even javelin. I started my eighth grade season off learning the basics of how to be a thrower, like a simple stand throw, or even a two-step for javelin.
My eighth grade season made me love this sport so much. The practices were so different from any other sport that I had known. With basketball, practices were focused on basketball drills and with football, practices were focused on running routes. But with track, practices focused on everything from running and jumping, to throwing and hurdling. And even when it came to the meets, they were also different, as there were call times for your sport depending on your position (grade or JV/Varsity), which caught me by surprise. I missed a couple of my events that first year because I was so new to the sport, but eventually I found myself enjoying throwing discus, shotput, and even javelin. Once the season ended, I started watching videos of Olympic throwers like Mykolas Alekna and Ryan Crouser because I wanted to start learning how to throw better, which made me anticipate my freshman year season and got me excited to start throwing in high school.
My freshman year at Big Sky went by so fast, and before I knew it, the school year had gotten to spring. Signups were being held in Nile’s room, but I never tried to sign up like I was planning to. I missed out on my freshman season, including being in a meet called Western AA Freshman Meet, where it was just freshman that got the chance to compete alongside other freshmen. When I honestly think about why I decided on not doing track during my freshman year, I think it was due to me thinking that since it was my first year of high school, I wanted to just get the idea of how the high school experience is before I tried to involve myself with any clubs/activities.
I missed out on the experience of being in track during my freshman year, which even today still makes me think: what if I had joined track like I had planned to? After my freshman year, I tried out another sport at the start of my sophomore year, which I had also come to regret the decision of leaving, as once me and my sports team had gotten through the hardest part, I decided I wanted to leave. This also makes me think about my “what ifs” mindset, and leaving this sport hurt my self esteem on doing another sport during my sophomore year.
Afterwards, the rest of my sophomore year got better overtime. Spring season had come along and I started to get overwhelmed about my affiliation with sports, leading me to almost second guess my decision to sign up for track again after an almost two-year hiatus from the sport. I dealt with this mindset within the three weeks before we had signups due to the fact I left the sport that I was previously participating in during the summer-fall season, which made me contemplate whether I’m capable of being able to do a sport and be able to finish an entire season.
I finally got to sign up for Track & Field after my missed opportunity to do so in my Freshman year. I finally got to be in a sport that I longed for after a long hiatus, and even though I had to relearn all the fundamentals of going into this sport again after so long, it reminded me of the feeling I had my eighth grade year, which made me want to keep up with throwing, even outside of school. I started just throwing at my local park or even finding a rock and practicing my throwing hand. Sophomore year still remains my favorite year for both academic and athletic aspects, as it was just an amazing time to not only experience classes but also fall back into a sport that I missed for so long.
Junior year, I didn’t try to overthink my decision of going into track again, as it was a pivotal point in my development of being a thrower. It started off like how it ended my sophomore year with distances of 61-64 feet for discus for the start of the season, and shotput distances got higher by like 2 feet. My discus coach, Corey Merrill, who holds the record for Big Sky’s discus throw, had started to give me more confidence, and when I eventually started to actually listen to what he was teaching me about better form/technique, I found myself practicing the movements everywhere I went, like the grocery store, or even at the place I work. I was noticing that I started wanting to throw farther – not only just for divisionals, but also for future meets and just out of school possibly. The Big Sky Quad meet was where I finally was able to throw farther than the 60s, with a distance of 87 ‘3. I got a lot of praise from my peers, but also from my coach, who had really started to keep an eye on me afterwards and continuously started to teach me better ways to pivot my footing, or how my arm movements should look during the end point of my throw. Corey helped me in so many ways during my junior year, and that gave me a feeling like my 8th grade season again with the new opportunities and wanting to get better with each track meet.
I started learning how to do different techniques than just the average stand throws, such as the glide and the rotational technique. I still remember the moment like no other day when I threw at the Greg Rice City Meet. I was trying to make my way up to divisionals, which was my main goal of that season. I did my first two throws, and it was all up to my final throw. I took the biggest deep breath of the season, and with that, I got myself set up to start my final throw using the rotation technique my coach had taught me. As I left the discus circle along with hearing my distance of 100 being announced, I knew I had secured my spot at divisionals. It was my biggest achievement to date. What I had tried so hard for finally paid off.
My divisional performance wasn’t the result I had hoped for, but despite that, at least putting my all into my junior year helped me see that all of my hard work and patience had finally paid off.
Going into my final season, I want to thank Coach Nile, Coach Merrill, Coach Tomsich, and Coach Batt for the opportunity to throw for all three events at Big Sky for the last two years, now going on three. This sport has helped me in so many ways that I would be here all day listing them. Long story short, track has helped show me that not only being patient but also being consistent can take you a long way.
In my four years of being at Big Sky as someone who has both missed chances and achieved my goals, my advice for any underclassman or upperclassman is to take the chance of trying something that you have never tried before. If I had the chance to re-do my decision during my freshman year of being in track, I would have signed up instantly rather than live with my regrets of never doing it. The importance of taking a club/sport isn’t always about taking medals home or even making state, it’s about the memories or even the opportunities you gain along with it. Track has not only allowed me to gain confidence about the stuff I want to do in my future, but it also has helped me get out of my comfort zone and do challenging things, even if those things may seem impossible to do. I believe students should always try out a club or sport at least once during high school, and this isn’t me saying to do a lot of clubs or sports, but rather to take notice of what Big Sky has to offer and get involved in something. Maybe you might even find something new that you never knew you were good at.
As I began walking into the F wing to Nile’s room last week, I started to appreciate that I get to be a part of the Big Sky Track & Field Team.
One last time.
