Jason Coon, junior, may have just started a new academic year at Capital, but accomplishments from the recent past still follow the athlete.
During the spring of 2016, Coon participated in the Division III Track and Field Nationals, which were held at Wartburg College in Iowa. He competed in shot put and was the only member of Capital’s team to attend what he calls “the biggest meet for D-Three athletes.”
Coon entered the tournament as the 16th seed, and his throw of 16.55 meters (53 feet, 3.75 inches) with the sixteen-pound shot earned him tenth in a field of twenty throwers. The top eight throwers in the competition were named Division III First Team All-Americans.
Coon said that the throw that ranked him tenth was his second best of the meet. A previous throw had gone further, but he touched the top of the toe board on the front of the shot put circle, which caused the throw not to count. He cites fouling as a reason for playing it safe on the throw which placed him tenth.
“It was almost like a safety throw,” Coon said. “I think I was just trying to dial it back a little bit … and I felt like maybe if I just kind of chased [the shot] out a little more, then it probably would’ve been a saved throw, and I would’ve gotten to that final.”
Coon remarks that despite not making it into the final round, which consisted of the top nine throwers, he is still happy with his performance.
This performance at Nationals was during Coon’s first semester at Capital after transferring from Kansas State University. When asked about the upcoming season, Coon was optimistic.
“One of the main reasons I came to Capital was to work with the throws coach that was here last year,” Coon said of coach Justin Rodhe, who competed for Team Canada in shot put at the 2012 Olympics in London.
He refers to the spring of 2016 as an adjustment period for his body, due to different coaching and training than at Kansas State.
“It wasn’t until about five or six months that I started feeling like my old self and was actually hitting marks that I was hitting before I got to Capital,” Coon said. “[But] since my training over the summer has gone really good … I’m confident that by staying in the system and staying with Capital … that big things are going to happen.”
Coon is also positive about Capital’s track and field program as a whole. He says that even in his first semester at Capital, he noticed a change for the better. Coon gives much of the credit to the coaching staff, who were brand-new at the time.
“I think the brand-new coaching staff has done a lot to challenge the athletes to really try and go for a … higher level than what [they] thought they could have done.”
He says the culture of the team, even between the throwers alone, has improved since he arrived.
“I feel the intensity at training is a lot higher,” Coon said. “… everyone is a lot more focused, and we’re all confident that we can do big things … bigger than we did last year.”
He also praises the work of head coach Hannah Weiss and says that she is supportive of anyone who wants to work hard. He stated that Coach Weiss was very involved with the team as a whole, even though distance was her specialty, and thought it was a major factor in the drive of the team.
Jason Coon is not in Kansas anymore, and he knows it. With Coon set on improving on last year’s performance and the track and field program on the rise, hopefully we will see some, as Coon says, “big things” this spring.
