Lorenzo Nivellini, Staff Writer–
For many Denisonians, breaks are great opportunities to go home, spend time with their families and enjoy some leisure time. However, athletes are allowed to stay on campus during these breaks. If a break coincides with their season, they often have to remain on campus for most of it, while training and playing both at home and away.
During spring break, the baseball team competed in the Snowbird Classic Tournament in Port Charlotte, Florida, and Adrian, Michigan. In the latter, they beat Baldwin Wallace, avenging their loss from last year’s playoffs. The softball team also competed in the Grand Slam Triangle Classic in North Carolina, winning two games. Additionally, the men’s lacrosse team played two games, with Luke Fisher and Nate Kay both having multiple goals and assists. The track and field teams also were busy. Andrew D’asaro placed second in the Javelin at the Myrtle Beach collegiate challenge, while Ari Skolnik and Jacob Brown both competed in the NCAA indoor national championship.
Brown competed in the heptathlon, which consists of a 60 meters, 60-meter hurdles, 1,000 meters, long jump, high jump, shot put and pole vault. He finished 18th with a 4,244 total. He finished third in the shot put.
Q: What was it like to compete in the national championship? Do you think the fact that it happened during spring break changed anything?
Jacob Brown: Yeah, I got more one-on-one time with the coaches, along with being able to travel with them. With it being the beginning of break, I think it was a really fun transition because we traveled, and spent a little bit of time in Virginia Beach. We got to go onto the beach, which is everybody’s dream for spring break. Then I got to travel back home to Massachusetts. I think it’s cool how everyone else was on spring break, but I was still in Denison mode because I was at a track meet representing Denison. I was able to do so in a way that was fun and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Q: You’re a senior, of course, with a rather long and decorated career. What advice do you have for incoming freshmen and other younger students who don’t have much experience competing during break and having to stay on campus or not being able to go home?
A: I think my biggest recommendation is to know that it’s a special opportunity to get to stay. Whether you’re qualifying for a national championship or, generally, we have people stay a bit past graduation in hopes of qualifying for the national championship when they can go to a last-chance meet. So I think that, while people may be traveling outside the country and doing anything like that for the break, realize that the coaches see something in you and you’ve had success to the point where they feel like it’s worthwhile to bring you to these special meets that not everyone gets to go to.
Q: How long have you been doing indoor track, and how do you think it prepares you and others like yourself for the outdoor season?
A: I didn’t compete in indoor track in high school, I played basketball, but ever since I’ve been at Denison I have, and, I think, for me, this indoor season was nothing short of almost perfect. I don’t like to use that word but it was great. My goal for my whole career had been “I want to qualify for the national championship, get to compete against the best of the best, and be one of them. Just being able to accomplish that, alongside one of my teammates as well, was special for both of us, and I think it showed me that I’m capable of doing that.
My whole career I’d been close but hadn’t quite done it and now that I finally did it I was like, okay, I’m capable of this, it’s something I can do. Going into the outdoor season I think it set me up well, both confidence-wise and it took a little bit of the pressure off for me of being like “Is this something I really can do”? Now, realizing that it is, I can just go do it and perform like I know I can. I think it calmed the nerves a little bit, but it also really motivated me to see how much further I can get.
Q: The heptathlon is seven events of all kinds, ranging from shot put to pole vault to hurdles to even long distance. In track, people usually specialize in a specific event such as sprints, one to two field events, or long distance. How did you realize you were so adept at such a wide variety of events?
A: I didn’t recognize it in myself at the beginning. I started doing track during my sophomore year of high school. I played basketball so I was like, I can jump, and I liked to run–I’d always run cross country–so I was like, I like to run, I’ll kinda see what I can do. So, I started doing the 400 meters and long jump. I was like, these are fun, then I saw throwers, and one of my really good friends was a javelin thrower, so I was like “damn, that looks like so much fun”. And so I started trying it a little bit and.
You know, I played baseball, and, I thought, it’s kind of like throwing a baseball, but instead of a baseball, it’s a long stick. Throughout the time I was like “Oh, this event looks fun,” and “This event looks fun.” Then my coach my junior year of high school, was like “There’s this thing called the decathlon you should do. There’s one at the end of the year and you should give it a go.” That’s really what got me into the multi-events in general, having a coach that saw something in me, like “you know you can.”
My first meet, you know, I was pretty terrible at it, but it was fun, you know, and I challenged myself in a new way. I think, over time, I began to see progress in different areas.
The biggest thing I tell everyone is that it gives me a way of–if I specialized in one event and it wasn’t going well, it’d be very challenging for me mentally to get over that, that hurdle–no pun intended and just keep pushing myself through that–but with these multi-events, I can say, like “oh, shot put went well, but long jump didn’t but that’s okay because shot put did and I can take that, be happy about that and work on shot-put later.” So, I have different areas where I can find happiness.
I also find things I need to work on and continuously see progress…and that’s not to say that people who only do one or two events don’t always see progress, but for me, it’s a different mindset that fits the way I think as a person. I think that’s what’s allowed me to have success as well.