Track & Field Notebook: Always Looking Ahead
January 17, 2011 | Women's Track and Field
Jan. 17, 2011
This marks the first edition of the Louisville Track & Field Notebook. It will be updated throughout the team's indoor and outdoor seasons to provide fans an in-depth look at the Cardinal athletes.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Athletes are constantly told to set goals. In this day in age, where bigger is better, loftier goals reign supreme.
So, it might come as a shock when defending two-time weight throw national champion D'Ana McCarty says she isn't solely focused on attaining a three-peat in the event.
"I just aim for a mark," the senior says. "It's not to win a national title; it's just to hit a mark. I set goals for marks to hit, and if that mark just happens to be a national championship mark, then so be it. I wanted to hit 23 (meters), and I keep getting closer to it."
With the success that she's had at the collegiate level, one might assume her winning ways carried over from her high school days. Yet, McCarty admitted that, outside of her father Terry, she didn't have a coach prior to coming to Louisville.
"He was still trying to learn since he threw a long time ago," McCarty says of her father. "He was trying to remember stuff, and all I could do was just watch people and copy what they did. I never had someone to break it down."
Fortunately for McCarty, when she decided to commit to Louisville, she was committing to a program with an experienced and successful coaching staff, which included throws coach Dale Cowper. After a four-year stint at Cal State Northridge, Cowper is in his fifth season at Louisville. Regardless of location, though, Cowper has continued to develop his athletes into a group that consistently ranks among the nation's elite.
Cowper's tutelage of McCarty immediately paid off in 2008, her freshman season. Not only did she qualify for the BIG EAST indoor and outdoor championships, but she capped off the year by becoming one of the first female athletes in program history to advance to the IAAF Junior World Championships, competing in the hammer throw.
McCarty acknowledges that even with the hard work she puts in during the offseason, Cowper has been a major factor in her growth.
"He has helped a lot with technique because I didn't have a coach in high school except for my dad," she says. "He keeps our stress down. He's not always hounding - sometimes he backs off and other times he's on it."
With close attention to detail and an excellent instructor, McCarty carried the momentum from the conclusion of her freshman campaign into her sophomore season. She dominated competition during the indoor season, winning all nine weight throw competitions, securing the weight throw title at the 2009 BIG EAST Indoor Championships and ultimately winning the national title to become the program's first female national champion. At the time, she tied the school record she set with a toss of 72-5.75/22.09m.
Never taking her foot off the gas, she rolled through the indoor season last year, winning seven of eight indoor weight throw competitions, repeating as the league champion in the indoor weight throw and defending her national title with a toss of 74-8.25/22.76m, a school record. That success was compounded with two All-America honors during the outdoor season, as she placed ninth in the discus and 10th in the hammer throw.
By the time the year was complete - both the indoor and outdoor seasons - McCarty had captured a national title, three All-America distinctions and a league crown. The list of achievements alone is a mouthful, but it's not nearly as long as the track year, which spans nearly six months, from the first meet of the indoor season to the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
"It seems long when you get there, but afterwards, when you look back, it's a blur," McCarty explains. "It's like, `Where did the season go?'
"When you're looking at the meet in front of you, it seems like it's coming up real fast. Afterwards, it seems like it just blows by."
And the days and memories might seem to fade quickly based on how McCarty deals with her performance at the conclusion of each competition.
"I just try to move on," she says. "I go and talk to my coach and see what I did wrong and what I did right. I just try to take that and apply it from there. I don't overstress it because that's when you create more problems when you're focusing too much on something else."
Although some athletes dwell on their performances or try to go back and figure what they did wrong, the approach has seemed to work well for McCarty.
Thus far in her career, she has collected two national titles, four All-America distinctions and two BIG EAST individual titles. Despite seeming eager to garner more hardware, McCarty is set on one thing - looking ahead to her next competition.
