College athlete of the week
Player: Janell Alyea
Year, school: Sophomore, Everett Community College
Sport: Track &field
Hometown: Everett (Cascade High School)
What she did: Won the discus (128 feet, 10 inches) and placed third in the hammer throw (120 feet) while competing against competition from four-year schools at the Pacific Lutheran University Invitational on Saturday.
What’s next: EvCC has the weekend off before returning to action at next week’s CNW Spring Break Open in West Seattle.
Two-minute drill
You won the discus and took third in the hammer throw at the PLU Invitational over the weekend. What did that mean to you?
Were the conditions down there as nasty as they’ve been up here this week?
Were you stuck out there standing in it the whole time? One of the hours, my coach let me sleep in their car. There ended up being four hours between my first and second event, so that’s what I did.
How’d you sleep? It was a pretty good nap.
Must’ve been a spacious car. It was a Lexus. Heated seats and all that, y’know?
I understand you won the discus event on your first throw. Did you just pack it in after that toss? Kind of. I did try to push for a better throw, but it was kind of nice that I set the standard high on my first throw _ not only for everybody else but also for myself. They condensed the event because it was getting so late, so you did your three throws and then they didn’t do the finals.
Why do you think you got off to such a great start? I was thinking about it a lot. I could barely sleep the night before because it was the first meet. That’s why I took that nap. I went over it a lot mentally, and I was ready.
You mentioned earlier that you played basketball at EvCC this season. Was that just to get in shape? A teacher I had for one of my classes said: ‘Why don’t you come out?’ I was like, ‘No, no,’ because I had track in the spring. I talked to my track coach about it, and we had mixed feelings. But we thought it would help me get into shape. It was fun, I made some friends, and I did get into shape. It did take a little away from my technical work, though. But it was still good. I wasn’t used to running. We run a lot for track, but not for two hours _ and then I’d have to go to track practice.
So there was an overlap in the practice season? Since October. Sometimes you can get burnt out, but I had an open slot for that time, so I thought I might as well do it.
What kind of action did you see on the basketball team? I didn’t really play that much. I was playing on a college team, and this was the first time I’d played basketball since fourth grade. So there were a lot of games I wouldn’t play at all. Then there were some when I’d play about five to six minutes. I scored a few points. I can’t shoot at all. I can’t dribble. But by the end of the season, I could make some decent moves to actually look like a basketball player.
Did your free throws look like a shot put? (Laughs) I tried. It didn’t really work out that way, but I did have a really, really bad shot. I’d tell people: ‘You know I can’t shoot, right?’
As a discus and hammer thrower, you must have been a pretty tenacious defender in the paint. Yeah, for sure. Everyone was like: ‘The first game, you’re probably going to foul out.’ I didn’t foul out _ because I didn’t have enough chances. But it was hard. I didn’t understand the rules because I hadn’t played. So I’d be like: ‘That’s a foul?’ I didn’t know.
Why Everett CC? It has a really good fire science program, for firefighting. So I got involved with that. They didn’t have a track team for the past 16, maybe 20, years, so they hadn’t had one forever. Someone in one of my classes was talking about going to track practice, and I said: ‘They have a track team?’ She said they just started it this year. So I decided to go out, and Mary Parker, my throw coach, she’s just an amazing coach. I didn’t think I would throw that well, but I did pretty well from the beginning.
What kind of a track career did you have at Cascade High? Two years in a row, I made it to state (in the discus). One year _ I can’t remember which one _ I tore my meniscus right before the track season started, so I had to do a standing throw. I did that all season, and I made it all the way to state and threw it 130 feet. I’m pretty proud of that. To do a standing throw and make it to state.
How’d you do at state? I can’t remember exactly. At state, I took seventh one year, and sixth the next year.
What’s next for you? Hopefully, I’ll finish my fire science degree, and then I really want to be a firefighter. If I can get something going with Central Washington, where they have a nationally-ranked paramedics program, that would be great. But if not, I’d still be satisfied with my little small-school degree.
I’m sorry, but I can’t get the image out of my head of you showing up at the fire station talking about being a college basketball player and them thinking they’ve got a ringer for the station team. I’d probably just laugh. I don’t know. I don’t know how great my basketball skills are, but if you put something in my hand, I’ll probably throw it.
Hopefully, you don’t throw the hose. (Laughs) Yeah, right?
Or the cat from the tree. Yeah, I’ll throw a cat up in a tree just so we’ll have something to do. (Laughs)
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