This is the seventh of a planned series of feature stories about Carthage College athletics and its athletes to be written by veteran Milwaukee-area sports writer Jerry Karpowicz. Click here for a story archive.
Remember the last time you appeared to be less than calm, cool and collected, and someone suggested that you take it easy? How did you respond? Did you, or did you have a reply that went something like, 'Easier said than done.'
For Mindy Harrington, coming up with a competitive comfort level has led to a stellar senior season as a thrower for the Carthage women's track and field team.
Harrington found that when she was stressed about how she would perform in meets, the results did not match her talent. Something needed to change. It did.
“I just kind of relax,” Harrington says. “I don't really think about it a lot. If I think about it, I stress myself out and I don't do as well as I can. I just kind of go into any meet like it's a practice. I practice really hard. And I try to practice how I compete, so I kind of compete how I practice. I just try to stay relaxed, and goof around, because if I focus too much it doesn't go well for anybody.”
It hit home Harrington at last year's NCAA Division III Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships, for which she qualified in the weight throw (indoor) and shot put (outdoor) but did not reach the finals in either event. That was a letdown after winning the shot put, placing second in the hammer throw and fifth in the discus at the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Outdoor Track and Field Championship. She also won the weight throw and took third in the shot put at the CCIW indoor championship.
“In practices, I always kind of goofed around a little bit, and once it got time for nationals I tried to focus really hard and get really serious about it, and I just would stress myself out and I'd put a lot of pressure on myself,” says Harrington, who owns school records in the indoor and outdoor shot put. “Now I just try to keep the pressure off, because I don't do well if I try to out a lot of pressure on myself.”
It All Comes Together
Her approach, along with some help from assistant coach
Jeff Rebholz, is working quite well. To say the least.
Harrington won the shot put competition six times in 13 meets through the April 22 Oshkosh Invitational. She has won the shot put and weight throw in the same meet four times, including the CCIW Indoor Track and Field Championship. She has won the discus once in four tries and has also placed second, third and fourth.
She finished third in the weight throw and fourth in the shot put at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship in March in Columbus, Ohio, both finishes good for All-American status. While en route to Ohio, Harrington was told she won the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches of America Midwest Region “Field Athlete of the Year” award for 2011. She joins Becki Schmitz (2002) as the only Carthage female track athlete to win the award.
A season best of 46 feet in the shot put (April 8) was good for third (as of April 28) among NCAA Division III athletes in the Track and Field Results Reporting System outdoor rankings. Her April 13 hammer throw of 170 feet ranked 10th.
Harrington has qualified for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championship in the shot put and is a provisional qualifier in the weight throw.
Carthage women's coach
Stephanie Domin says going through the NCAA meets last year provided Harrington with a good lesson for this year.
“Your first year going to nationals is just that experience,” Domin says. “You kind of go in thinking, all right, let's just see. Your second year, you do know what to expect and you just have more confidence in yourself. I don't think you're as nervous, you're not putting as much pressure on yourself.”
Rebholz, in his first season at Carthage, has been a valuable addition. He is a 2007 graduate of Monmouth College, where he was a two-time NCAA Division III All-American in the shot put, an eight-time national qualifier in throwing events and a three-time Midwest Conference Track and Field Performer of the Year.
“I can't even put into words how much I appreciate him being here and helping me, because in the summer he put in time for me to come up and meet with him,” Harrington says. “He'll spend a lot of extra time; I was having some technique difficulties and he was e-mailing his old coaches and he was going to all these other resources that he had, to help. He gives 110 percent to all of us.”
An Upside to the Outside
Throwers get nowhere near a high percentage of attention from spectators. The field events are almost always outside the track, which makes it hard for people to get a decent view of the competition.
“Not a lot of people come over and watch us,” Harrington says. “The only people that really come over and watch us are our parents or, as the girls throw the guys will watch if they're not throwing. As throwers, I think we're like our own little team.
“It kind of depends on where you're throwing. At Carthage, we have our hammer and discus rings away from the track, over by the baseball field. But the shot put ring is actually inside the track, next to the football field.
“Pretty much where all of our outdoor meets are, our throwing venue is not inside the track. So it's nicer for our parents and the people who want to come watch, because they can sit with us. We can interact with our parents. I like it a lot.”
Harrington will graduate in May. She has two student teaching positions lined up, at Grant Community High School Lotus Elementary School, both in Fox Lake, Ill., and not far from her parents' home in Spring Grove, Ill. Harrington also says she will continue to work out with the hope of making it to the Olympic trials.
Her bedroom at home is the current resting place for growing assortment of honors, medals, plaques and trophies. One of the most impressive pieces of memorabilia is the Midwest Region Field Athlete of the Year award, an impressive-looking etched glass piece that is 8 1/2 inches tall and 6 1/2 inches wide.
“I was really excited,” Harrington says when told about winning the award while en route to the NCAA Indoor Championship. “I didn't expect it at all. Our region is a powerhouse. And the field events, (NCAA Indoor champion) Oshkosh is in our region. That was probably five or six of the girls I threw against at nationals.' ”
Have Awards, Will Travel
She will eventually move the growing collection of awards with her.
“When I buy a house, I'd like to have an office or a trophy room-type thing and have all my stuff there,” says Harrington, a two-semester member of the athletic director's honor roll. “Five years maybe. We'll see. Buy a house while they're all still cheap.
“Or, depending on the level I'm teaching, like if I'm teaching high school and coaching high school track, I'd like to have the awards out there just so the kids can see if they work hard that that's what they could get. A motivational thing.
“I'm an exercise sports science major, so hopefully I'll be teaching physical education and then health. Ideally, right now — this could change after student teaching — I'd really like to teach the elementary-age kids. But realistically, I'll take a job wherever I can get one.”
The tasks in the near future involves her closing collegiate competitions, the biggest of which will be the NCAA outdoor championship on May 26-28 in at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.
Harrington has reached the point where she expects to perform at a certain level.
“I kind of expect it now, and when I don't reach that level I get pretty upset with myself,” Harrington says. “At the same time, I realize that some days there's just going to be off days. I think I hold myself and my performances to a pretty high standard.”
He Could See it Coming
Rebholz, who should know, believes Harrington has not yet reached her peak.
“Once I first saw her throw, I could see the talent and potential there,” Rebholz says. “She had had some success the last year. She definitely started to come on last year. So we wanted to continue that, and we've probably, indoors, had more success and have thrown farther than either one of us thought she would. It's a credit to not only her natural abilities and her physical tools that she's been given, but the fact that she's worked pretty hard and done a lot of the things she needs to do.
“I knew she made it nationals last year and didn't have a ton of success, so I tried to do a little bit of building her up on that. It's hard to do as a coach, and it's something that I'll probably get better at the more years I coach. But I tried to build her up and get her confident to do well, not only prior to national meet, but at the national meet.
“I think her confidence level has definitely risen as the year had went on. Now she goes into pretty much every meet and expects to do well and expects to win. When you're ranked that high in the country, in most cases you're going to be the best thrower every single meet. So she has to go out with those expectations to do well, and not only compete against the field but compete against herself and try to throw a personal best every week.
“Physically, she's done what she's needed to do in the preliminary meets. After saying that, she really hasn't thrown quite as far as we've wanted her to, but I think that's not necessarily a bad thing. We're pretty sure that her best throws are ahead of her.”
Told what Rebholz said, Harrington had a short, concise reply that indicates she is well prepared for the challenge.
“Well, he's right,” she says.
The weighting room, with Mindy Harrington
What is your favorite electronic device?: “Probably my cell phone. I just have a junky one. I don't even have a good one. I just use it so much, I don't think I'd be able to live without it. I don't have an iPhone or anything. It's a little piece of junk. iPhones and everything, they're so expensive. I'm just one of those people, where I feel like I have so many other things I can spend that money on, I'm not going to waste it on my cell phone.”
How do you like to relax away from competition?: “I just like to hang out with my friends, and come home and be with my family. I'm pretty family oriented. I live like right over the border (about 40 minutes from Carthage).”
White Sox, Cubs or someone else?: Cubs. Born and raised Cubs fan. Rough. Sometime it's hard to be a Cubs fan though, I'm not going to lie.”
A class recommendation: “My favorite class was in my major, and it was like 'Methods and Materials of Teaching Elementary Physical Education'. I took it my junior year. It was actually taught by our former assistant women's coach, Susanna Swenson. It was the best class I've ever taken.”
What will you remember about Carthage?: “I think the thing I'll remember most is just being on the track team. It's something I've done well in, and I've really, really enjoyed. I think I'll miss the people that I threw with the most, but being on the team is nice, especially when I was a freshman and sophomore. We'd have big team dinners before meets. That was kind of nice. We'd have big pasta dinners. We still do it, the throwers will do it sometimes. A few Sundays ago, when it was really, really, really nice out, we had a bunch of people over, and we went to Sam's Club and bought 15 pounds of hamburger meat, and we just grilled, like all day. Stuff like that I'm going to miss; all my friends.”
