Hammering Down Pluth Finds Her Passion And Future In Weight Event

Faced with many doors to her future, Jessica Pluth found one that caught her interest and hammered it down.

Literally.

Pluth was a typical high school student-athlete who slowly found her niche. A state-caliber but not extraordinary thrower of the shot put and discus, she planned to study pre-med or math at the University of Washington when she graduated from Ferris this spring.

Then she discovered the hammer throw, and it has changed her way of life.

Next month, she’ll accept a track scholarship from Stanford, where she wants to study physics, “so that I can understand the technical aspects of the hammer throw.”

Eventually, she wants to coach at a university level.

Pluth has become so conscious of her training that she will wash the sugar off the raisins in her cereal.

“I used to eat garbage,” she said. “I decided if I want to be serious about the Olympics, I have to be serious about all aspects (of training). It all started with working out. It’s not much fun. The less fat you have to burn off, the easier.”

Her Ferris coaches talk about blossoming, maturing and focusing. This once painfully introverted young woman has discovered a path and is sprinting down it.

“I used to be really shy,” she said. “I worried about what I was wearing. Now I would wash raisins in public. I talk a lot more, too. I’m sure you noticed.

“Looking back to the way I was, I’m glad I changed. … It’s the hammer. It really opened a lot of doors. I only do things 100 percent.”

Ferris head coach Todd Bender was an assistant when Pluth was a sophomore sprinter. He looked at her frame and begged head coach Jim Missel for the chance to try her in the discus.

“The reason you get into coaching is not the sport,” Bender said. “It’s too help people find an identity, learn life lessons. Jessica has just blossomed… . You love to say you had something to do with that.”

“She has relentlessly pursued the throws since she was introduced to them,” said assistant coach Beth Hopkins. “When she got into the throws, she clicked. She found that individual reliance it takes to be a track athlete. She took to that. She found something she’s passionate about.

“I’m here to help. I don’t take credit for her success. It’s been her own drive, her own work ethic.”

Pluth dabbled in dance and swimming as a youngster, but despite her size never got into basketball or volleyball until she was a freshman. By then, she said, it was too late.

“Everyone who was good started really early,” she said.

But she liked track.

“It’s individual, you just rely on yourself. You set goals. You can push yourself harder and see progress,” she said.

Especially with the hammer, a relatively new event for women.

“It doesn’t matter (when you started).”

Last year, Pluth tried - and won - the hammer throw at the Pasco Invitational. The first-time event was held the night before the main track meet. She went on to place at state in both the shot put and discus.

She attended the Olympic Training Center in San Diego last summer. She was second in the weight throw - a heavier (20-pound) version of the hammer (8.8 pounds) used in indoor competition - at the Nike Indoor Classic at Bloomington, Ind., earlier this month. She won the Simplot Games in Pocatello, Idaho, in February.

For high school meets, she’ll continue to throw the shot put and discus but she leaves practice early twice a week to practice the hammer with Arnie Tyler Jr. She’s going to some college meets to throw the hammer.

“She’s had three different coaches,” Bender said, referring to himself, Hopkins and Tyler. “She’s used every opportunity to learn.”

Mixing the hammer in with the traditional high school events is a plus in Pluth’s eyes.

“Doing the hammer is speed and speed helps in any event in track and field,” she said. “Strength, too. It’s different footwork but it’s the same idea. You’re trying to get a piece of steel to go as far as you can.”

Pluth’s goals are modest, throwing the discus 145 feet and the shot 43 feet, easily state-placing but not winning numbers in last year’s field.

“Those are goals set by an athlete who knows what the sport is about,” Bender said. “She knows her capabilities, knows how an athlete progresses year by year. Personally, I think she can throw farther.”

He also knows Pluth is the kind of athlete to set an attainable goal, reach it and refocus, rather than be satisfied.

Her goal in the hammer is 180 feet, which would be a record for a Washington native. She has thrown 169-1, which ranks fourth.

Pluth’s parents enjoy watching their daughter blossom.

“They’re happy to see me make more friends,” she said. “I used to just read so much, I used to be in my room. Now I’m always doing something. I even do the grocery shopping.”

That was until the family tasted the sugar-free jam she brought home.

And, about those raisins.

“I’m always trying to cut back on sugar. When you eat a raisin and can taste the sugar, you said, `I don’t need the sugar.”’

Now she’s into oatmeal. No sugar. No sodium.

It’s still sweet.