The RoundHouse | 5/7/2021 2:55:00 PM
Taran Taylor started his javelin career at Wichita State with all-conference honors and a national title in 2018. He went from throwing 186 feet in high school at Arkansas City to 243 feet as a freshman.
"Kind of unreal improvement," throws coach
John Hetzendorf said. "That's a career's worth of improvement and then some."
Then Taylor's career went dark. Elbow surgery and the COVID-19 pandemic kept him from competing for two seasons – or 986 days, he calculates.
"It felt like 1,000," he said.
Taylor returned to the javelin this spring and is again throwing at a high level. He ranks No. 17 nationally with a throw of 234 feet, 2 inches, the best this spring by American Athletic Conference thrower. While the layoff of 2019 and 2020 frustrated him, it also gave him time to work on his form. He concentrated on calming his upper body while throwing, moving his right hand away from his right hip to produce more leverage.
"I'm just happy he's back and throwing," Hetzendorf said. "Baseball players know about the Tommy John (surgery) and it's just tortuous to come back because it's so long. Then to get a COVID year, get your season cancelled weeks before it starts, is kind of hard to swallow."
This spring, he's thrown between 225 feet and 234 feet in each of his four meets. He competes again Friday night in the Shocker Open at Cessna Stadium. The conference championships (May 14-16) and NCAA West Regionals (May 27-29) follow. His sights are set on around 246 feet (75 meters) to qualify for the NCAA Championships (June 9-12).
"That was my No. 1 goal – to be consistent," he said. "My consistency is climbing every meet. Now, I'm throwing 70 (meters) pretty consistently."
That consistency came after the big jump of his freshman season and the year rehabbing from elbow surgery and the disappointment of the canceled 2020 outdoor season.
Hetzendorf recruited Taylor because of his arm and his speed – Taylor also sprinted in high school - and athletic ability. Taylor's analytical mind and his work ethic helped him move fast as a freshman, leading to his throw of 243-8 to finish second in the conference meet in 2018. That summer, he threw 233-2 to win the USATF Junior Championships.
"We just talked about simple things, throwing a little straighter, a little lower, and things started to click," Hetzendorf said. "A week or two before the conference meet – and I don't know where it came from or how it happened – he just started moving differently. Way more explosive. I don't know if he matured right in front of my eyes and all of a sudden he was doing things at a higher level."
Taylor remembers that spring of 2018 and working with a talented javelin group that included Aaron True, who holds the Shocker record at 254-3 and twice earned NCAA All-American honors. Taylor describes the feeling as similar to when a golfer says a swing feels smooth.
"Finding a certain feeling," he said. "I was really competitive. And I wanted to beat Aaron and everybody else. That was what really kind of got me going. Trying to do whatever I could."
Taylor is a computer science major who loves technology and space exploration. On Wednesday, he watched the live stream of Elon Musk's Starship high-altitude flight test.
"This was the first successful one in months," he said. "That was pretty exciting to watch land and be safe. It's fascinating to follow along and study and see what humanity is capable of."
Hetzendorf has coached many throwers with those type of academic interests – engineering students, computer experts and future accountants. There is, he finds, a link between the success in a technical and process-driven sport such as javelin and those type of students.
"It's fairly common in the throwing world," he said. "It's all physics. The nature of throwing, it's in essence a mathematical formula you have to calculate out while you're doing it."
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
