Chapter Nineteen - Track and the Weight of the Throw

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Track and the Weight of the Throw

“IT WASN’T DISCIPLINE. It was understanding.”

Let’s talk sports.

I didn’t do a lot of them, and I didn’t do them for long, but when I did, I found something in them that stuck with me.
I did a week of football freshman year. Didn’t work out.
Didn’t feel right. Wasn’t the time.

But come junior year, I needed two seasons of a sport to get my gym credit.
And my best friend was doing indoor track and outdoor track.
So I figured, why not give it a shot?

I joined indoor track, and I didn’t run.
Not really. I was built more like a refrigerator than a relay baton.
So I did throwing events, shot put and the weight throw.

Shot put? Hated it. Wasn’t my thing.
Weight throw though? That was magic.

It was physics. Timing. Balance. Power.
It wasn’t about being the fastest. It was about rhythm and control.
And I wasn’t amazing. Sometimes the throw went wide. Sometimes it slipped.
But I cared. I tried. I practiced.
And that mattered.

The best part wasn’t even the event.
It was the coach.

He got it.
He didn’t make me run extra laps for being slow.
He didn’t single me out.
He knew what I needed. Not discipline, but space.
Not punishment. Just movement.
He ran a team, but he saw the people. And that meant everything.

Indoor track was a family.
Even for me, the big kid among the sprinters.
I still got the same jacket as everyone else. A little snug, yeah. But mine.
I’d show up on meet day, grab a Panera bagel, warm up, and throw my heart into a circle painted on a gym floor.

And there was this one meet.

I didn’t even want to do shot put that day.
Wasn’t feeling it. Didn’t care. Just wanted to get it over with.

And then, boom.
I hit varsity distance.
Didn’t even know it until someone told me.
“Hey, you’re officially varsity now.”
Just like that.
No buildup. No big moment. Just a throw that happened to land exactly where it needed to.

That one moment made the whole season worth it.

I planned to do outdoor track after that.
But then COVID hit and shut it down.
And honestly? Might’ve been a blessing.
Outdoor felt like more running, less weight throw, less of the good stuff.
So maybe it worked out the way it needed to.

But man, indoor track?
That was something special.

I didn’t break records. I didn’t go to state.
But I showed up. I learned something. I moved.
And every now and then, I hit the mark.