Trojans senior Ryan Gray had his fun as a long jumper and sprinter, and all the while became a seriously better thrower who aims for another big day at today’s Portage sectional

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Chesterton boys track and field head coach Bryan Nallenweg let thrower Ryan Gray go off script and enjoy himself in unconventional ways at a couple of meets in hopes that Gray would repay him with serious practices and throws in big meets.
So, Nallenweg let the 6-foot-6, 340-pound offensive lineman enter the long jump during the senior day meet and Gray did better than anybody expected, popping a 12-foot-6-inch jump on his final leap.
Then, at the Lafayette Relays, Nallenweg let Gray and fellow senior throwers Elizabeth St. Marie and Autmn Spencer from the girls team and Owen Edlen from the boys team compete in the mixed 4x100 relay. Again, Gray ran faster than what most would have guessed.
And when it came time to hunker down and deliver at the DAC championship meet, Gray thanked the coach for letting him have fun in the best way possible, by blowing away his personal record in the discus and in the process giving his team far more points than his seed projected.
Gray threw the discus 149-4 to finish second, shattering his previous best mark of 134-9. He was seeded sixth, a place that gives a team three points. Instead, he gave the Trojans eight points, not a small difference.
“Last year at DAC I didn’t do too well and I had to avenge it,” Gray said the night Chesterton was crowned DAC champions for the first time since 2010 of last year’s conference meet, when his best throw was 107-7. “I realized if I got more points, we’ll have a better chance to win. I was seeded at sixth and we were seeded to win by three points, and I knew if I could get more points, we would have a better chance to win. My mindset during school all day and on the school bus and yesterday was I need to throw big so we can score more points.”
Gray threw big, 15 feet bigger than his previous best in a meet and Chesterton finished 30 points ahead of second-place LaPorte.
The more serious Gray became about throwing, the more fun the coach let him have, a tradeoff that paid off for both men.
Gray’s football career traveled a similar improvement curve, and he had a big senior year.
The more patient the football staff was with the big man with nimble feet and flexible hips, the more serious he became about football. Now he intends to play it in college and will head to Western Illinois to as a preferred walk-on.
Gray has a chance to score big again for the Trojans in today’s Portage sectional. Only New Prairie’s Isaac Frank (167-11) and Gray’s classmate Owen Edlen (163-4) have had longer throw’s this season than Gray’s mark at the DAC meet.