UI shot putter’s goal appears in rearview mirror

So here’s a lesson in setting unrealistic goals.

At Hermiston High School in Oregon, Mykael Bothum was a pretty fair shot putter – third in state her senior year, a best just beyond 44 feet, a track scholarship to the University of Idaho ahead of her.

Before she left, her high school coach had her write down a distance she wanted to reach before she finished college, and Bothum put “50” on the board.

Then she told him, “I don’t see how there’s any way I can attain that.”

She was right, after a fashion.

Fifty feet went by the wayside her sophomore year, 52 the next. At the Western Athletic Conference indoor championships in March, she blasted a throw out 56-51/4 – 12th among all American women and fourth among collegians in 2010.

So you’d have to say that high school assessment was, well, unrealistic.

Or maybe not. As her last season heads into the homestretch this weekend when UI hosts its annual Vandal Jamboree, Bothum has reached 50 feet just twice outdoors, her best nearly 5 feet short of that indoor monster, and she is clearly antsy for bigger numbers.

“It’ll all come together,” she insisted. “It better.”

However it ends up, it’s been a remarkable spring for Bothum, and quite a ride for someone whose family business, if you will, has been rodeo.

Her father, David, went to nine National Finals Rodeos in saddle bronc riding, and eight times was champion of the Columbia River circuit. Her mother, Cydney, competed as a young woman. Cousins and uncles were on horses. Her brother, Ryan, now rodeos at Connors State College, roping and steer wrestling.

And Mykael?

“We had this little Shetland pony when I was young,” she reported, “and I got bucked off every time I rode.”

No matter, She had plenty of athletic callings in high school – basketball, volleyball, softball. Then the track coach coaxed her into trying the javelin and she put the shot for a fitness test in P.E., and that was the end of softball.

“My parents were pretty upset – well, not upset, I guess,” she said. “But I’d played ever since tee-ball, and there had been pitching lessons twice a week and practices and ASA games, and my dad had been my catcher for those lessons and, well, bummer.”

But it obviously turned out to be the right call. Bothum has blossomed in Idaho’s throwing klatch. In addition to the school records indoors and out (52-0), Bothum cracked the top five in the discus (166-0) last week. Her name does not appear on the school’s hammer list, however.

“Not a good sight,” she said, laughing at her rare ventures into the cage. “I look like the guy in ‘Kicking and Screaming.’ ”

Her humor is easy and a little off-center, and she comes by it naturally – named as she was in reverse “A Boy Name Sue” fashion.

Yes, it’s pronounced, “Michael.”

“My mom and my grandma (Gary) have boy names, and the middle name Ann,” she said. “Mom picked Mykael because of Mychal Thompson of the Blazers. She liked how he played, but she spelled it differently.”

What else? Well, she’s getting married in September – to Eugenio Mannucci, a shot putter on the men’s team, who proposed three weeks ago.

It was, she reported, “Very romantic.”

And they’re the only couple on campus who can squat 750 pounds between them in the weight room.

JJMcK?

No one’s comparing Jasmine Johnson-McKeown to Jackie Joyner-Kersee. But Washington State does have an intriguing freshman competing in the Pacific-10 heptathlon this weekend.

Most females come to the multis from the hurdles and jumps. As Cougars coach Rick Sloan noted, “They’re quadathletes – and they survive the other three.”

Johnson-McKeown’s best event isn’t even in the hep – she’s thrown the discus 154-8. She’s a 41-foot shot putter with 24.47 200-meter speed. But she’s never hurdled – she scraped up an arm in a fall at Spokane Falls and nearly somersaulted the first barrier in a race at Whitworth.

And it’s still not her least favorite event.

“The 800,” she said. “A nightmare.”

Still, the raw speed and the throwing ability suggest she might eventually have an edge in top-end potential on the hurdler-jumpers. She’s scored 4,876 points this year, third on the Pac-10 list.

“But right now I depend on the shot,” she said, “to make up for the hurdles or 800 or whatever I do bad that day.”