by Jordan Houser
As the indoor track and field season begins, senior throwers Paul Baker and Theron Mackey have their sights set on breaking records.
Mackey’s most recent showing in the javelin, his best event, garnered him a 49.98-meter personal record throw. Where does the school record stand? A mere nine meters away—a gap that his teammate believes he can close.
“[Theron] found his niche with javelin,” Baker said. “[Getting those last nine meters] is easy to do with javelin.”
Baker also pursues throwing records this year. His interest lies with indoor and outdoor shot put.
“I’m hoping to get the outdoor record,” Baker said. “It’s around 50 [feet] or something. I just want to beat the record. It’s been standing for thirty-plus years.”
Baker began throwing in middle school while he was also involved in basketball, football, and golf. Although his strength lay in throwing, he says that at one point golf interested him more.
“To be honest, I probably would have golfed instead if it had been a different season,” Baker said. “I golfed a lot when I was younger, almost every day for years in the summer. But golf is a summer sport, and I couldn’t do that with football.”
The decision to throw was made clear by his physical strengths.
“I heard ‘you’re big, you’re strong,’ so I went out to track and realized I wasn’t too bad at it,” Baker said. “I just kept rolling with it, and ended up falling in love.”
Mackey also had experience in track, but it wasn’t in throwing.
“I did track for one year: seventh grade,” Mackey said. “And it wasn’t throwing. I ran the 4×4, the 800m, and pole-vaulted. I did everything but throw.”
After spending two years at Capital, Mackey realized he wanted to do something more with his time.
“I knew the track team was looking for people,” Mackey said. “I wasn’t in any shape to run at all, so I decided to throw.”
After joining the team, Mackey and Baker became such good friends that they now share a home on Sheridan Avenue.
“We lived in the same hall sophomore year,” Baker said. “It wasn’t really until junior year when Theron started throwing that we really started [to be good friends].”
Now at the very start of their final indoor season, Baker and Mackey are optimistic about the upcoming indoor and outdoor seasons. Despite a disappointing team performance at the Otterbein Invitational, Saturday Jan. 18, both throwers were pleased with their individual performances.
Mackey, still nursing a groin injury sustained during a morning training session, hit a personal best shot put record Saturday.
“I fouled at 14.06 or something, that would have put me in 8th place,” Mackey said.
This was not the first time he has set a personal record while injured. In his debut season, Mackey suffered a foot injury during a training session that involved box jumps, an exercise used to build explosive movement in athletes.
“My toe looks like a hook,” Mackey said. “And I [set a personal record] at that meet by another half a meter, just like I did at Otterbein last week.”
This ability to overcome the physical pain of the sport comes down to mental capacity, Mackey claims.
“It’s one of those things where it’s the heat of the competition,” Mackey said. “You don’t really think about it.”
Mackey knows better than most the mental strain of injury recovery. During the off-season training period, Mackey suffered a ruptured appendix and underwent emergency medical procedure. The medical condition kept him out of training for seven weeks, but the mental aspects of the injury had an even greater impact.
“I was putting a lot of work in during the summer,” Mackey said. “I was doing stuff that I can’t even do now. It was totally different [from my other injuries] because it was all core. I didn’t realize how much I used my core on a daily basis until I had my appendix rupture.”
Hoping to put injuries behind him, in addition to breaking the javelin record, Mackey seeks All-Ohio status for both indoor and outdoor shot put. He also hopes to make it to finals in the OAC where he will score points for the university track team.
For Baker, anything short of the national stage will be a disappointment.
“I’m sitting a little better nationally for indoor shot put than I thought I would be, so maybe indoor, but most definitely outdoor,” Baker said. “There should be no reason why being an All-American by the end of the year should be out of the question.”
Baker also hopes to place in the top three of the OAC.
Whether or not Baker meets his goals for this year, the athletic department will certainly look upon his career as a success. For Baker, however, his goals are non-negotiable.
“I am very hard to please,” Baker said. “No one will ever be harder on me than I am on myself. That is a fact.”
Now, as they near graduation, Mackey and Baker both make plans for the future. Mackey considers pursuing his MBA and taking advantage of his final two years of NCAA eligibility, while Baker eagerly awaits the real world.
“I’m ready to go out and make some money and get my life started,” Baker said.
The Capital University Track and Field team will compete Saturday in Geneva, Ohio.
jhouser@capital.edu
