Park University Athlete of the Week is freshman and track athlete Diamond Mobsy-Norris.

Norris keeps busy with all her events in track, including the shot put, discus, hammer, weight throw and javelin. Though a freshman, she has already made and broken her record in the weight throw, from 11.4 meters to 12.23; and indoor track this year only attends three meets this year.

According to Norris, who attended Winnetonka High School, her high school coach, Jessica Phautz, was the one who recruited her to Park her senior year, beginning her journey to jump-start the throwing program.

“She walked up to me at practice one day and said ‘I want to recruit you,’” Norris says about finding her way to Park. “And I just laughed and said ‘okay’.”

Phautz introduced her to Park University athletics and helped her attend some practices on campus to see how she liked it. She signed to join Park a month later.

“My favorite event is the shot-put,” Norris said. “It was the first thing I ever learned and I’m comfortable with. It came the most naturally, and it’s the one that I’m happiest about when I have success.

“It’s hard to gain ground, like in discus; wind one day can make you throw really far. With shot-put, if you mess up you know why you messed up so you can fix it.”

Norris says growing up with athletic siblings is where she found her liking of sports and got into shot put.

“I grew up with siblings, all of them athletes,” she said. “I was always the one that wasn’t like them, you know, breathing heavy going up stairs. They’d tease me about it like siblings do.

“So I did track to show them I could do it too. The entire first day was just running and I was like, ‘ I can’t do this!’ and I was going to quit. But some of my friends were like ‘You have to come, tomorrow they start throwing, you’ll be great at it!’ So after thinking about quitting I ended up going one more time. And I surprised myself.  With shot-put I threw the furthest on the team. And now among my siblings I’m the only one that gets to do it on scholarship,” she said.

Weight throw, the event where she already holds records, is an event that is new to Norris.

“It’s starting to grow on me,” Norris says. “It’s hard not to be excited when you’re doing well. It’s really new, so it’s easy to keep pr’ing, and it’s just hard not to be excited early on.” According to Norris, footwork and technique are what help make a good thrower. “There are people who don’t lift as much as me or are as strong as me will throw further than I do because of their technique,” she said. “If you can have strength too it’s ideal, but if I was coaching I’d start with the technique of it before sending anyone to the weight room.”

The throwing program at Park University is still developing but has already made an impact on scoring.

“Field events actually score more points than running events,” said Norris, “but if you’re not in it or know about it it’s hard to be excited about it. Just like sometimes before one of my events I’ll hear a gun go off for a race but I don’t get excited to watch it, because I don’t know much about it.”

“Sometimes I wish there was a day to experience other people’s events. I mean, like technique and stuff, I don’t want to have to go run. I think it might make the team closer, like ‘Oh, you’re not just here taking up space!’ Sometimes I feel like people look at throwers like that.”

Despite differences in training, strength areas and knowledge of one another’s sports, the rest of the team is looking positively on having such a successful thrower on the team.

“It was really cool sitting on the bus after the first meet and hearing that we had a new record holder on our team,” sophomore Lydia Jensen said of Norris. “I had no idea that she was such a good athlete.”

Though at the last meet Norris came in third and fifth in her events, she was not concerned at all with her placing. As long as she hit a new personal record that was good enough for her, she said.