Former Concordia athlete Jesse Staub, who has recently returned the sport of track and field after taking a break, finished third in the men’s javelin Friday at Hayward Field for the Oregon Twilight Meet.
His third-place throw of 209 feet, 1 inch, finished about 11 feet, 4 inches from the winner, Ryan Brandel, a former Oregon athlete.
As a Duck in 2006, Brandel had a personal best of 214-3 at the Pac 10 Championships, a distance he surpassed in today’s meet by more than six feet.
Staub was on the track team at Concordia in Portland. Since graduating, he has decided he still has a passion for it and really wants to do it again. He has friends who still train at Concordia and said it’s a good way to stay in shape and be around friends.
Staub said he had two goals for the Twilight.
The first was to throw a personal best. He reached his PR a couple weeks ago at a meet in San Francisco. He is looking forward to next year or maybe the year after when he gets good basic training to continue with bigger meets.
After college, Staub took a break training in the sport to coach. “I was coaching at a high school for a couple years so I haven’t really trained,” he said. The last time he competed was in 2013.
“I still have passion for it still capable of doing it and decided to do it again,” he said, and has done a little bit of traveling since he’s started practicing again. He mainly throws at local meets.
He coached at Reynolds High School for the last two years, but is taking a break because he said training takes away from that.
Staub said he enjoys getting back into throwing and being back at Hayward, where he was able to compete while in high school and college. He enjoys the atmosphere but says he doesn’t like throwing javelin here as much because it has more head wind because it’s more difficult for his style of throwing.
On top to track, he also has a full-time job. He owns a construction business with his dad. He said training takes away from work because he leaves early from work to train. He said he loses about four or five hours daily to practice.
Overall he said he enjoys being back in the sport and being around good friends.
