GORHAM — Four years after winning a national high school title in the shot put, Becky O’Brien decided she’d had enough.
The sport was no longer fun for the former Greely High star.
Her nadir came at the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, where she finished 16th of 23 throwers and failed to make the finals. This, after a college career in which she transferred schools and passed up her final year of NCAA eligibility.
“I didn’t want to see anything to do with throwing,” O’Brien said. “I didn’t want to be around the sport.”
For seven months after the trials, she didn’t touch a shot put.
Then O’Brien attended a high school indoor track meet where her father, Dennis, was coaching the Greely throwers. At meet’s end, she grabbed a shot put, raised it to her chin, and threw it across the field house.
“Lots of people fire the shot when meets are over, but the way she threw it, everyone started looking around wondering who that was,” said John Folan, Greely’s head coach.
“She’d be the first to tell you she was very disappointed she did not perform well (at the Olympic trials). But once she decided to come back, it was time to go after it again.”
Now 24, a rejuvenated O’Brien finished second at the U.S. indoor track and field championships in March with a career-best throw of 60 feet, 2 inches.
She is in contention to make the U.S. team heading to the World Championships in Beijing in August – and if she stays on track, the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The key ingredient? Teaming up once again with her father.
“I had unfinished business,” O’Brien said. “The first thing I did was convince my dad to coach me again.”
HIGH SCHOOL CHAMPION
As a high school junior, O’Brien qualified in the shot put for the U.S. team that competed at the junior world championships in the Czech Republic. As a senior in 2008, she was the high school national champion and represented the U.S. junior team in Poland.
“In the Czech Republic, she marched out with the U.S. team. All of a sudden we saw our little girl dressed in USA gear. It’s an amazing feeling,” said Mary O’Brien, her mother.
She improved from 38 feet as a freshman to 51-61/2 by the time her high school career ended.
“I remember in middle school we had already noticed she was a very good athlete. We expected that would translate into high school success. But no one could have known just how much,” Folan said.
O’Brien received a full scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina, but the team’s throws coach left after her freshman year.
O’Brien chose North Carolina because of the opportunity to train outdoors year-round. But the school lacked the elements that led to her high school success: all-around strength training, drills that focused on the basics of shot put technique, and, well, the coach who had recruited her.
Mary and Dennis O’Brien attended nearly every college meet, but O’Brien missed the consistency and the strict training regiment she enjoyed with her dad.
“Nothing against my college coaches, but there is a pretty strong bond you have with a parent. When they’re your coach, they understand a lot more about you than someone who is meeting you for the first time,” O’Brien said. “That was an adjustment. Partly, it’s my fault for not communicating better. It took me out of my regular routine. And ultimately, how I do in the circle affects my overall happiness.”
LOSING HER PASSION
O’Brien didn’t feel the school was a good fit from the start, and started looking for another after her freshman year. She switched her major from exercise science to communications and transferred to the University of New York at Buffalo. The school didn’t have a history of success in the throwing events but it did have a stellar strength program, something O’Brien missed.
After sitting out a year, she found her new team offered little inspiration or direction. So she trained herself, working out more often than her teammates. She says today she put too much pressure on herself.
“I felt really anxious. I felt like I was backing myself into a corner, letting myself focus on the small things, instead of looking at the big picture and letting myself compete and have fun,” O’Brien said.
“When I first came to college I wanted to blame the coaches, the teammates or the school, when I don’t think it was all of those things. I think it had to do with how I handled it.”
O’Brien set school records at Buffalo, throwing 57-81/4 indoors and 56-6 outdoors, and qualified three times for the NCAA championships, but she never threw better than 54-43/4 at nationals and finished no better than ninth. She never earned All-American status.
During her senior year at Buffalo, O’Brien was home training at a Portland gym when she ran into Jared Bell, then a thrower at Deering High and a four-time Class A champion. Bell said all he remembers from those meetings was O’Brien working hard.
“When I knew Becky she was going through a rough patch in terms of her progress. That never really affected the way she trained. I can’t imagine her working any harder than she had,” said Bell, now a sophomore thrower at Princeton.
O’Brien forfeited a year of eligibility at Buffalo, choosing instead to end her collegiate career early.
“I was all set,” she said. “I was done.”
Folan said it’s understandable why O’Brien grew frustrated and gave up the sport for a while. But the dynamic between the father-and-daughter team, he said, is the key to her success now.
“When she was in college she threw for a couple of different coaches at UNC, then the State University of New York at Buffalo,” Folan said. “But when she would come home, she would almost always go to her dad to fix things. Through her college experience, he was always there for her.”
Since Dennis O’Brien joined the Greely High staff as the throws coach 10 years ago, the school has produced several state throwing champions.
“He is universally respected by everyone, not just in Maine but New England,” Folan said.
BACK IN GOOD HANDS
After college graduation, O’Brien started a personal fitness consulting business. Then she landed a position as the throws coach at the University of Southern Maine in November 2013. Things started coming together.
Working with her father on a daily basis, she came to appreciate and focus again on the small successes.
At a recent practice at USM she ran through three rapid-fire connecting turns, each one looking the same as the next. But to the O’Briens, there are big differences in what they call this “game of pieces.”
“I felt back on that,” Becky told her dad.
“You were back, but you also were in the middle,” Dennis O’Brien said with a calm Maine accent.
The comment visibly pumped up his daughter.
“Being able to hit the middle is a small victory. That’s what a lot of massage therapy gets you,” Becky said, pointing to a tight hip.
One of Becky O’Brien’s throwers wandered over to watch her coach practice and smiled.
“It’s really cool to train with someone who is training for the Olympics,” says Briana Piana, a sophomore from Cumberland, Rhode Island. “People in my classes ask me about it. People know. You almost get star struck by it.
“I was scared she would drill us into the ground. And she kind of does. But it’s OK.”
Dennis O’Brien, owner of O’Brien Construction and General Contracting, built a throwing circle this winter for Greely High so that his daughter could train there and they could fine-tune her approach.
Both father and daughter believe Becky has developed, harnessed and perfected her throwing technique over the last two years.
At the 2014 indoor nationals, O’Brien finished seventh with a throw of 56-111/2, her best finish at a national meet since high school.
Two months later, she threw 58-4 – a personal best – at a meet at Brown University.
“At that point, it started to be fun,” she said.
Then at a meet in July at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, O’Brien threw 58-6.
“That was a big test,” Dennis O’Brien said.
This winter at the indoor national meet in Boston, O’Brien threw over 60 feet for the first time – and she did it twice, propelling the 8-pound, 12-ounce shot 60-1 and 60-2.
Had she made those throws two years earlier at the Olympic trials, they would have earned her third place – and a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.
On Saturday, she won the shot put in the women’s open division at the Florida Relays with a throw of 59-9.
The next benchmark will come June 25 when O’Brien will try to earn a spot on the U.S. team heading to the World Championships.
She feels she has come full circle, back to where she was in high school. She has a coach she excels under, a supportive team around her at USM, and a new appreciation for her sport.
Others like her chances.
“One thing I learned from her is that you need a lot of skill and you need a lot of talent, but a huge factor that contributes to being a world-class thrower is will,” said Bell.
Most of all, O’Brien believes in herself.
“I feel when I go into practice, I’m excited. And when I go to competition, it’s like being able to, after all the hard work, sit back and give people a show,” she said. “It’s time to relax and have fun.”
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