DRC Track/Field Carrothers takes last shot at gold

[OldTimer]

Track & field: Carrothers takes last shot at gold

Mean Green senior has six Sun Belt silvers

05/08/2003

By Tim MacMahon / Staff Writer

North Texas senior Jerome Carrothers has had his fill of coming close.

Carrothers, who throws the shot put and discus, has won a total of six silver medals and one bronze at the Sun Belt indoor and outdoor track and field championship meets the last three seasons. His performances have helped the Mean Green men win two outdoor titles in the three years since joining the league.

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Courtesy photo

Jerome Carrothers may be UNT’s best in the discus and shot put, but it hasn’t translated into gold at the Sun Belt Track and Field Champion-ships, where he’s won six silver medals and one bronze the last three years.

However, Carrothers enters this weekend’s conference meet at Fouts Field in search of his first gold.

"I want it real bad," Carrothers said. "I can already see it. It’s already mine."

Judging strictly by the numbers, Carrothers is considered the favorite in both events.

He has already qualified for the NCAA Regional in the shot put and had a career-best throw of 54-0 — the fifth-best in school history — last weekend at the UTA Open. Western Kentucky’s Kristo Galeta, whose best throw this season is 51-5 1/4, is Carrothers’ closest competition within the conference in the event.

Carrothers also has the Sun Belt’s best throw this season in the discus. His toss of 162-9 two weekends ago is more than two feet better than the next-best throw in the conference.

"I don’t even take all that into consideration," Carrothers said when asked if he felt like the favorite. "All it takes is one throw. That could be from me or somebody else."

Carrothers has succeeded despite working with three different throws coaches during his college career. He said he has learned from each one of them and been able to improve his technique each season.

Carrothers has also made it his responsibility to provide some stability to other throwers throughout the coaching carousel.

"He’s kind of the coach of the group," said UNT director of track and field Rick Watkins, who has had discussions about adding Carrothers to the coaching staff as he completes his degree next year. "He helps out all the other throwers, and he understands all the technical aspects of the events."

Carrothers, an applied arts and sciences major, said he hasn’t decided on a career yet. But his father, John Gillion, believes Carrothers would make a great coach.

"He cares about winning and trying to help people," said Gillion, a personal trainer who has Carrothers help him with camps during the summer. "He does a real good job with kids. He always leaves a good impression on people because he genuinely cares."

Until the spring of his freshman year at UNT, the 6-0, 220-pound Carrothers had never focused on track. He was a standout high school linebacker at Lake Highlands and was recruited to play football by several Division I-A schools.

But Carrothers blew his knee out — tearing the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments — during his senior football season. He still received scholarship offers from some smaller schools, but he put off surgery until that summer and spent the next year working full-time and rehabilitating his knee.

Carrothers competed unattached at some meets that spring and was introduced to the Mean Green coaches by Parrish Johnson, a former high school football and track teammate who threw the shot and discus at UNT. Carrothers accepted a track scholarship with the agreement that he would attempt to walk on to the football team.

A few days into August two-a-days, Carrothers succumbed to the pain in his knee and decided to concentrate on track.

"I realized that my love was definitely for track more than football," Carrothers said. "For me to stay out there [on the football team], I’d have been doing it for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t in my heart anymore."

Added Gillion: "He just put all his energy into track."

Carrothers, who attends every home football game, has watched the Mean Green football team win back-to-back Sun Belt titles and make consecutive trips to the New Orleans Bowl. But said he hasn’t spent one second thinking about what could have been if he kept playing football.

"I don’t have as regrets about deciding between football and track," Carrothers said. "I’ve had a lot of fun these last four years. ... No regrets at all."

He does, however, have some unfinished business.

TIM MACMAHON can be reached at 940-566-6870.

[CMJ]

I wish him all the best. Jerome deserves his gold. He defintely sounds like a great guy.

[Cerebus]

Talk about bad luck, he picked up a silver in the discus today and another silver in the shotput, being edged out for the gold by .03 meters

Oh well, he's had a great career, and 8 silver medals is nothing to sneeze out, and he has two outdoor championship rings that he had a huge hand in getting by picking up all those medals.

Congratz on a great career Jerome!