Related Departments
Related Topics
Related Articles
Turner Throwing His Weight Around In D-III
By Mike Barber, Daily News-Record
Most people don’t like playing in the rain. Weight-throwers hate it.
Nathan Turner’s debut for Eastern Mennonite University this track season wasn’t quite what he was hoping for. Two weeks ago, in cold, wet conditions at Virginia Commonwealth, Turner didn’t perform as well as he wanted to.
So when he woke up last Saturday – hours before the Jopson Invitational at Bridgewater College – and saw snow falling, Turner was less than thrilled.
"The weekend at VCU, it was so cold, my hand was numb and I really couldn’t feel it," Turner, a former Spotswood High School standout, said Tuesday before track practice. "The shot kept slipping off my hand. And then it finally got to me mentally and I just fell apart. At Bridgewater, I just said, ‘It’s cold out here. I just have to try to stay warm and focus on doing what I do.’"
Setting Records
Turner overcame the elements, winning the shot put and hammer throw and finishing fourth in the discus. He set an EMU school record in the shot put at 15.36 meters (50.39 feet). Turner set facility and meet records in the hammer, throwing 63 feet, and finished fourth in the discus with a throw of 119 feet, 11 inches.
"You can’t ask Mother Nature to turn the heat up here and there," EMU coach Seth McGuffin said. "We started at 8:15 in the morning, it was snowing. I told him, ‘You might as well clear your mind now, get used to it.’"
Unlike the previous weekend, Turner was able to do that Saturday.
"It got me through the mental part," said Turner, who transferred to EMU after one year as a redshirt at Division I Radford. "It was snowing. It was wet. It was cold. I pretty much got my mind set that I knew it was going to be bad weather. It was something I had to get through."
Tuesday, bad weather struck again. Rain forced Turner and the rest of the EMU track team indoors. Turner threw a rubber shot put while wearing a black Bridgewater College T-shirt. He said it was a gift from friends at BC who wanted him to consider playing football and track for the Eagles when he left Radford.
"It’s just a practice shirt," Turner said with a laugh. "Just a practice shirt."
Symbol of Success
McGuffin said it symbolized the success Turner and the Royals had at Bridgewater on Saturday.
That success just helped fuel McGuffin’s belief that Turner, the Group AA state shot put champion for Spotswood in 2004, can become a dominant athlete in Division III.
Turner met McGuffin when he attended the coach’s throwers clinics while in high school. He considered EMU before choosing Radford. Last year, while redshirting, he threw at meets as an unattached athlete – traveling to events on his own dime and competing as an independent.
Competing unattached, Turner said, allowed him to gain the D-I experience and also learn to better motivate and evaluate himself.
But McGuffin said he’s not sure how much Turner benefited from his redshirt year.
"It’s definitely not good going to a meet and not having a coach," McGuffin said. "You can throw all you want. If there’s nobody there to say here’s miscue one, here’s miscue two, lets go get it, you’re just going to keep making ’em over and over again."
Aiming to Qualify
Now, under McGuffin’s tutelage, Turner is aiming to qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships in the shot put and hammer. McGuffin clearly knows what he’s talking about: He still holds the Old Dominion Athletic Conference indoor and outdoor shot put and discus records, which he set at Lynchburg in 1995.
"I can’t argue with anything he tells me to do," Turner said. "He tells me to do something, and I do it. And I see results."
Turner started his work during the indoor track season this year. He still has four seasons of eligibility and said he plans to throw all four years while studying education at EMU.
The 20-year-old Turner said there are a number of differences between the indoor and outdoor season. For one thing, there is no discus indoors. But he didn’t hesitate to single out the biggest difference when the outdoor season rolls around.
"The weather," he said.
And that’s something he appears to have now conquered.
