Support for WXAV 88.3 is being provided by Northwest Community Credit Union, located on campus inside the Graham School of Management. The credit union provides members with a variety of financial products and services to help them achieve their financial goals. NWCCU offers all-encompassing free financial literacy modules designed to help students understand financial topics, as well as make sound financial decisions. For more information, stop in, visit their website at nwccu.com, or call them at 1-800-TO-B-LONG.
Support for WXAV 88.3 FM is being brought to you by Bookies, new and used books. Bookies has two locations, one in Chicago at 10324 Southwestern Avenue, and its new location in Homewood at 18109 Dixie Highway. For more information, please visit their website at bookiesbookstores.com. You can also find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV 88.3 FM and WXAV.com. WXAV, bringing the best podcasts to you. Salutations, listeners, and welcome back to the Player Profiles Podcast. I am your host, Dr.
Misrael, and if you're looking to hear the stories of all the great athletes we have here at St. Xavier University, then I must say, you have come to the right place. All right, so here's the deal. Today's athlete that we're going to be hearing from is Isaac Adams.
Hailing from Mackinac, Illinois, he is a thrower on the SXU men's track and field team. I sat down with him, and here's how I went. Isaac, thank you so much for joining us, man. Thanks for having me.
It's very cool. So, let me look at this resume real quick. So, you do shot put, you do weight throws, you do hammer throws, and discus throws. Yep.
So, in other words, for those who don't know what that is, this man basically picks up heavy things and heats them as far as he can. In my opinion, that is probably one of the most entertaining and fun things that I can see in track and field. Just grab and yeet. I like that.
I don't know about you, but I like that. So, anyways, let's get serious here. Obviously, it's a little more nuance than just pick up and throw. There are, you know, processes to, you know, how to throw and how to go as far as you can in terms of throwing.
So, we'll start with shot put. What do you think is the key in throwing and shot put? It's definitely consistent. It takes practice upon practice.
And you get better at the moment you go, but even when you think you're really good, you still have a lot of them. Yeah. Do you think it's very similar to the, you know, other free throws that you do? Shot put's similar to discus in a way, but then hammered weight are completely different in how you have to work on footwork and training form.
How so? So, in shot put, you have just one big spin. And then, like, say you're in hammer, you have one to maybe four spins in a nine-foot area. And you try to go as fast as you can with little spins and help at this.
So, if I'm not mistaken, for some of the throws, there is an area that you can't cross, which is the circle that you were talking about. How, especially when you're in the process of, you know, your spin, how do you make sure that you don't cross that line? It took a lot of practice. Usually, in shot put, there's a big toe board.
So, like, when I say a block or I'm throwing, I'm done throwing, I can, like, turn and put my foot on it, like, hit my foot on it. And then that'll stop me from going out to it. That really helps. So, obviously, you can only foul so many times before, you know, it's like, all right, that's about it.
But over the past few months, you've really progressed, especially in this past spring, you said a few PRs. As you, you know, retract that, what do you think is the importance of a PR? Honestly, I just throw it. But, like, when I go to meet, I'll pray and hope for the best.
But then, like, I realize that all this training I've done has led up to that moment in that ring. So, like, as soon as I step in the ring, I put it on my game base, and it's just your time. I just throw it. I kept throwing it all week.
I want to take you back to the start and have you think about, you know, what got you, you know, into track and field? What made you want to do what you do now on track and field? Honestly, I didn't stand sure for football because I thought football was going to take me to college. And then early on in high school, I realized, like, I don't want to do that because I don't want to hurt my body.
And then more than throwing after I had surgery on my arm, and I was out for football and basketball. So, I just got into throwing a lot more that season, and it became a lot more fun to get better and better because I knew I could do something like that. So, you said you started out with football, and then it led you to track. And then when football had its way and passed its course, track became that primary.
So, I have to ask you, what was that switch like, you know, thinking that, all right, football is it, is it. But then life happens, and then you transition to track. What was that transition like for you? It wasn't really that bad.
It was kind of cool because I still had the mindset to be as best as I could be and go as hard as I could into football and just have consistency and workouts and stuff. So, like, just going to track, I had that same mindset. It was a little more fun because, like, the teams were, like, more happy and giddy, like, we could all mess around. But then when it came down to business, our meets, it was in the ring, which was the game day, just go down.
There is a big difference between football and track. Football, people preach it as the ultimate team sport and all that good stuff. But with, you know, track, and especially, you know, with the events that you're put up to, they are solely individual-based. They are based solely on how you throw and how you perform.
How do you deal with that mindset? Like, what mindset do you have when you are throwing whatever item you're throwing out there? I don't know, honestly. I just – it is an individual sport, but it's also a team sport because it's rankings like in teams.
Like, all together, we're probably the top 20 in the nation's first program because we're just getting better and better. So, I hope you're going to bring it up. But the mindset is still the same. Like, even though it's an individual sport, you still have all the coaches and all the teammates.
And they, like, help you get better and progress just like football. So, how do they help you get better? Do you all, like, learn from each other? Do you all have, like, a certain workout or a certain piece of advice?
Like, what is it that helps you and your teammates with each other in your certain events and your throws? When one of us throws, we'll all be watching them. And if they – we'll all look at different parts of them. Let's say two or three of them look at how their feet move, like their foot movement, how they place their upper body.
And then we'll be like, hey, you've got to fix this or fix that. We'll work with them. And then outside of the ring, we're working on drills with them and we're just helping them get better. As, you know, somebody that, you know, throws, what do you think is the number one thing that you have to do in order to be successful in it?
You've got to learn how to let the bathrooms get here because my favorite thing is every 10 bathrooms are all one good throw. And I've been in a dropper these past few meets, and this week I've been throwing bombs. So, it's just a matter of time before I have one good throw, and it puts me on the plate, puts me ranked. Yeah, because in your first meet this year at the Windy City Classic, you obviously had a couple of top 10 finishes in the rankings when it came to shot cut and when it came to weight throws.
What do you think it's going to take for you to get back to sort of that kind of, you know, top 10 level and maybe go as far as first place or, you know, at least do the best you can? What do you think it's going to take for you to get back to that, you know, spot? I've got to work more on my footwork, and I've got to take ground when I throw. I've got to keep my feet on the ground when I can't be jumping, and I really have to work on exposing this in the weight room with our flipping coach.
When you actually, you know, are right there and it's your turn to throw, do you feel like any nerves or are you, you know, just, it's just goal time? Like, what's your mindset as you get ready to throw? Do you have any, like, routines or lucky rituals or anything like that, or do you just pick up and throw? I feel like I'm placed there for a reason, and when I stand on that ring, I just pick up the toe board, I look out as far as I can, and I kick the toe board a couple times, I go in the back of the circle, I throw it up on my head, and it just takes over.
I don't even think about the spin anymore. It just happens naturally. So things just happen naturally. So explain this to me, because especially for shot putt, you're holding a freaking ball of steel next to your head, and you're spinning around and throwing it as far as you can.
How in the world do you get so accustomed to that? Thousands of throws. I've probably had close to 5,000 throws in my career, about 1,500, maybe 2,000, here alone. This past week I've had probably close to 100, and it's only Wednesday.
It's just thousands of throws. So it's kind of like a physical physics of some sort. How calculated do you think are these processes of throwing these objects? I would say it would be calculated.
A lot of people haven't measured that in exact science. The perfect launch angle for it is at 39 degrees, but if you go from 37 to 41 degrees launch angle, it would be a decent throw. But anything less than that, if you consider it flat, anything higher than that, it goes too high and won't be able to get enough push on it. So track and field, I don't know if they do this, but do you know if they have any film that you have during your throws when you're at events that you can look back on and learn from?
Yeah, so our coach is always filming. Every day at practice, he's put a film up for us. We can watch it and see our feet go, where the ball's going, what we need to work on. And then during the meets, he'll film us.
It'll be like a shortened type of film, but he'll film us and see, like, come over and tell us what we really need to work on right then and there. And once we fix that, we try to watch them as hard again. That's interesting. You know, obviously, when you play football, it's easy to get film.
You just have to put a camera somewhere and just watch all the guys do what they do. But with track, obviously, it's very, very individualized. How do you think you assess yourself when you're doing film? How many times do you try to make adjustments while watching film?
Usually, we have, like, 10 throws. Each person gets 10 throws in, a film, a practice. So, like, I'll look at one throw maybe seven or eight times. And first, I'll start at the feet and see if I drop my heel or drop my leg on my right foot, which is my pivot foot to spin.
And then if I see I do that, I'll watch again and see if I can fix it. And then I'll go up and up and I'll look at my hips and I'll go to my upper body. And at the end, it goes to my head placement. Because if I keep my head straight, I know I'm going to follow the throw.
But if I turn it to the left, I know I'm probably going to save the throw. So, when you think about why you do track and when you think about, you know, the progress that you have made so far, just early in your second year, what do you think is going to be your main goal for this season and your main goal even beyond this season when you're doing these throws? For this season, for shot put, I want to play some counts. Shot put's not my main event, but I want to be good enough to say, hey, I got a medal at counts.
And then I'll go when Hammer comes, I want to get that score record and I want to get the matchups. That's the goal for this year alone. And then in the years coming, the goal is to be not from Jake and Hammer. So, how would you rank your events, the four of them?
Obviously, Hammer at the top, right? Yeah, Hammer would be one. I would put shot put at two, weight throw at three, and then discus at four. But, yeah, I think it's, you know, really cool.
And versatility is also, you know, a big thing to it, you know, helps you with your other events and stuff like that. Very much like how some people feel like football prepares them for trapping, maybe the other way around and stuff like that. Academically, however, because we are, well, not we, you are a student athlete, and that's not an easy thing to be at, you know, this age. How in the world do you handle being a student athlete?
It can be tough times, especially on, like, two-day meets, say we meet Friday and Saturday. I'll have to miss my classes on Friday, and I tell my teachers I'll be going for trapping. And then I'll have to do the make-up work either when I get back before the meet or during the bus. Because sometimes the buses have Wi-Fi on them, and if not, I have to use my personal hotspot in order to keep up the assignments to make sure I don't keep behind in the classes.
You actually have to do homework on the bus? Yeah. Usually, once I put my headphones on the bus, I just don't know, open my laptop up, and I just get to writing whatever I have to write or doing, like, math problems or whatever. That needs to be done.
Wow. On the way to a meet. Yep, and on the way back, too. That's what student athletes are, right?
They take dedication and all that good stuff. So what are you studying? Last time I checked, it was criminal justice and somewhat of a little bit of sociology. Yeah, I'm looking to, if I like sociology enough, I'm looking to double major in it, which is looking like it's going to be the case.
So I'll do a major in criminology and a major in sociology. So what do you want to do with that later on? I want to get to the FBI, the behavioral analysis unit in the FBI. Well, that's pretty big.
When I think of FBI, I just think of, like, how do I put it? I think of it as a combination of swagger and, you know, business being enforced. You know, I think of powerful human beings that, you know, find a way to do what's right. What draws you to want to do that?
It started off my senior year. I was looking at going into engineering, and then I realized, like, halfway through, I didn't want to do that at all. And then I started looking. And my brother's a cop, and I was like, that's really cool.
He can help people. He enforces the laws, but his main job is helping people. And I figured I could help people on a federal level, around the nation. But I would love that so much.
Yeah, because helping people is a very great ability to have. That's obviously a very interesting thing, you know, with your brother helping out and stuff, being a cop. How inspiring has he been in your life in general? He was like a normal little brother growing up.
He was like mean sometimes. But he always, if I ever needed help, I would keep people on the first week's fault. Because I know he would drive the three hours and come up here and help whatever I needed. So I'm very grateful for that.
I'm very grateful for my family, too. And family is a very, very strong thing. But I do have one last question before we go. When you get through with track and you graduate and you do step out into the real world and do what you want to do, what do you think you want your legacy to be here?
I want to be able to show people that no matter. I came from a small town with like 400 people in my high school total. And I want to show people that no matter where you're from, you can make it to a college doing whatever. And you can leave behind a tradition of consistency and work at it.
And show people like, this is why I came here. This is why I should be here. This is how I hit it. Mackinac, right?
Yep. What do you think is one of the best places to go there? It's about 45 minutes from Illinois State and that area. So there's a lot of cool restaurants there and a lot of cool places to visit.
There's nice arcades. But I just go to the same town. I've stayed in a house with my little brother or go in town with my cousins. That's my favorite thing to do.
Yeah, you just made me jealous of that arcade. Yeah, I'm sorry. I love video games and I love gaming. So that sounds really appealing.
I might actually have to go there. Very small town, huh? Yep. That's a very big attraction.
They definitely caught my eyes. Yeah, I lied. I do have one more question. Crap.
So you are a Dallas Cowboys fan and a Detroit business fan. Yep. How is that? I mean, I know I'm going to talk because I'm a Bears fan while being an Orlando Magic fan.
But where did that come from? Ever since I was like six or seven and I saw the old Detroit Pistons logo with the horse. And like Ben Wallace, I just fell in love. It was so awesome.
Yeah, dude, I miss that logo. I miss it so much. I just wish, I don't know if they actually ever did this, but I just wish that there was like an old Pistons jersey, like the one they had on when they went teal and red out of nowhere and combined the red and blue color scheme that they're known for having with the design of the teal and red jerseys. It would, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I have to see if that exists.
Yeah, that old Pistons logo is like S tier. That is something special. It's one of my favorite logos of all time. It just looks that good.
And that'll do it for today's episode of the Player Profiles podcast. A special thanks to Isaac Adams for taking the time out of his day to come sit down with me and do this interview. And until next time, so long, everybody. Oh, give me a...
Go Cougs, baby. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, WXAV.com, for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.