Florida's Jeremy Postin Combines Hard Work and Talent to Reach NCAA Championships
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 | Track and Field
By: Sean Cartell
UF Communications
Florida head coach Mike Holloway remembers vividly that spring afternoon in 2008 when the phone in his L. Gale Lemerand Center office rang.
On the other end was Jody Postin. He was moving his family to Florida, he said, and he had heard great things about the Gator track and field program. His son, Jeremy, had been a football player and a thrower, who prided himself on his weightlifting propensity, and had been leaning towards track and field.
“His dad called up and said he had a son who was a thrower and they were moving the family to Florida,” Holloway said. “He had heard good things about our program and he wanted his son to be a part of it. All they asked for was an opportunity. We gave Jeremy that opportunity and he sure has lived up to it.”
Postin had been born in Melbourne, Fla., but moved to Andover, Kan., at age 8. He was primarily a football player and had been an all-league linebacker, but also threw the shot put and discus. During his career at Andover High School, Postin had set his school's record in the shot put.
Associate head coach Steve Lemke, who has built a dynamic throws corps at Florida since joining the Gators in 2005, saw Postin's great potential as an athlete, but knew if he was going to prosper in the Southeastern Conference, it wouldn't likely be in the shot put.
“Jeremy's parents sent a DVD of him throwing the shot put and the discus,” Lemke said. “I saw he was really athletic and very powerful, but probably a little undersized for an SEC or an NCAA level shot/discus guy. I just thought, he's very explosive, very coordinated – I'll give him a try in the hammer.”
Postin wasn't familiar with the hammer throw, an event not generally contested in Kansas high schools. He headed south to start school that summer and, despite his unfamiliarity with his new event, Postin had faith in his coach's decision.
“The first time I ever did the hammer was when I came down here to work with Coach Lemke,” Postin said. “He told me I could be good at it. I wasn't as good at the shot put starting out because I'm not the tallest person. All my lifts – the one's I'm good at – tend to go towards the hammer. He brought me down here thinking I could figure out the hammer.”
Lemke began training Postin in the weight throw – the hammer's indoor alternative – and quickly saw great promise.
“We started right away with learning how to throw the weight,” Lemke said. “He just had a really good aptitude towards learning how to turn. You can do that with some people for a year and they never catch on. He got pretty comfortable in a hurry, so it just went from there.”
The move to the hammer throw was a natural process. Florida's assistant director of strength and conditioning for Olympic sports, Matt DeLancey, said Postin's strengths in the weight room were a perfect fit for his new event.
“The four areas that he's really good at – deadlift, squat, clean and snatch – are the ones that are most key to him as a hammer thrower,” DeLancey said. “I really just noticed his overall raw power. He has always been very powerful.”
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Flash back to 2009. Postin constantly brought a great approach to his training sessions, but he admits it didn't always feel like a seamless transition his first year.
“It was difficult at the beginning because I was down here and I went this far away from home to try a new event, but it wasn't going so well,” Postin said. “I threw like 56 meters my first year, which wasn't too bad, but I just felt like I wasn't doing enough.”
His coach told him to be patient – it would take a while for results to show up on paper, but improvements were being seen daily.
“I just had to keep reminding him that as long as you get better at something everyday, whether it's at your warm up or doing the drills, or whatever, that eventually it will come out in a distance that you throw in a competition,” Lemke said. “He was impatient – like most people are – he wanted results right away. He wanted to see on paper how far he was throwing and it doesn't always happen that way. That takes time, but I wanted him to recognize that the improvements he was making in other areas would all lead towards throwing far.”
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Holloway and Lemke elected to redshirt Postin his freshman year. They wanted to make sure he had time to develop in the event. In the meantime, Postin's parents drove him to a number of competitions to compete unattached. The pieces of the puzzle were all starting to move into place.
“It was very apparent early on that this guy had talent and we didn't want to waste a year of someone that talented, who probably wouldn't be competitive at the SEC meet his freshman year,” Lemke said. “We thought we might as well let him have that year to develop so that in his freshman year he could step in and score for us. It was the right decision and it really worked out for us.”
Postin had a strong indoor campaign in 2010 for the Gators, his first year of intercollegiate competition. He placed fifth at the SEC Indoor Championships with a personal-best toss of 19.09m/62-7.75, which, at the time, went down as the second-best throw in program history.
It was outdoors that Postin made his splash.
At the UCF Invitational at the start of the outdoor season, Postin broke Florida's school record in the men's hammer throw with a personal-best mark of 49.90m/196-6 to capture the event. He broke it again at the Tom Jones Memorial Classic. That feat affirmed everything that the redshirt freshman was doing in his training.
“I think it meant a lot because I think it legitimized being on the team in his mind,” Lemke said. “His unattached year, he was competing very well, but to put the uniform on and do it, that just takes it to the next level. I think that was big for him.”
Postin concluded his redshirt freshman season with a seventh-place finish at the SEC Outdoor Championships, scoring two points for his team, which won its first SEC Outdoor Championship since the 1987 campaign. It was at that moment that Postin decided he wanted to take his performances to the next level.
“I got a ring last year, but I only scored two points for my team,” Postin said. “I didn't feel like I had really earned it. I wanted to go out this year and actually do something to help the team.”
Lemke says that Postin's team-first attitude is one of many aspects that contribute to his success.
“I think that just speaks volumes for the type of person he is,” Lemke said. “He wants to be a contributing member of the team, adding to the Gator point total. His attitude and the hard work he does, that contributes as well. He wants to be someone who we count on for scoring points to add to our success at the meets. That's just how he is. He is that competitive.”
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Postin trained rigorously in preparation for the 2011 campaign. It wasn't imposed. He hadn't been told to do it.
He wanted to get better for himself and for his team.
“It has been really fun to watch Jeremy mature and develop,” Holloway said. “I see him out here in the summer by himself doing turns and working on things. He just wants to get better and that speaks volumes for his work-ethic.”
DeLancey, who has always noted Postin for his strong work-ethic, also noticed a different level of intensity from his pupil in the weight room headed into this season.
“He is on an elite level in the weight room,” DeLancey said. “He has gotten a lot stronger and his numbers have all gone up. There is definitely a strong correlation between throwing and weights and I think, internationally, he is right up there with most hammer throwers in the four key lifts.”
Postin's hard work paid off to start his sophomore season, as he surpassed the 20-meter mark in the weight throw for the first time in his career indoors, becoming one of just three people in school history to accomplish that feat. He placed sixth at the SEC Indoor Championships, scoring three points for the team and helping the Gators to their first indoor league title since the 2004 campaign.
In his first meet of the outdoor season – in Orlando, the site of his first school-record throw – Postin shattered his own school hammer throw record with a personal-best toss of 60.58m/198-9. That mark broke his previous school record by more than 14 feet.
A week later, competing on his home track at the Pepsi Florida Relays, Postin broke his record again. This time, becoming the first person in school history to throw better than 200 feet in the men's hammer throw. He used a personal-best toss of 65.09m/213-6 and flirted with breaking the Percy Beard Track facility record.
He again broke the school record at the Drake Relays, site of this year's NCAA Outdoor Championships, and again at the SEC Outdoor Championships, where he placed a career-best third. Postin's school record currently stands at 66.69m/218-9, having broken his own school record four times this season.
“My goal starting out this outdoor season was to break the school record every time,” Postin said. “I wanted to see myself improve. Now that we're getting to nationals, I kind of want that big throw. But, throughout the year, I just wanted to improve each meet and get a little better.”
Postin's coach believes his athlete's ceiling for improvement is limitless.
“Even with the number of times he has broken the school record, and because he's still new in the event, the potential is still very high,” Lemke said. “He is the right type of person to really take our school record and take the event to the next level. He is going to the NCAA meet, he is going to score at the NCAA meet and do the types of things that we want all of our athletes to do.”
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Florida hasn't been known for it's prowess in the men's hammer throw over the years. Jeremy Postin expects to change that.
Holloway, who constantly preaches the importance of having a broad-based program, is excited by the potential that Postin and teammate David Triassi have given the Gators in their event.
“What Jeremy has done has helped kind of open the door for us to have great hammer throwers here in the future,” Holloway said. “Coach Lemke took a guy who didn't know what a hammer was and now he's one of the top 15 or 20 guys in the country. That's a great reflection of the hard work Jeremy has put in and of Coach Lemke's coaching abilities. I definitely think it opens a big door for us.”
Postin knows that he may not always hold the school record in the hammer throw, especially if the school grows in the event like he hopes. But what he will take pride in is the fact that he was one of the first hammer throwers to establish Florida on the national stage in that event.
“I think it would be awesome, in the end, to be considered the guy who got the hammer started for Florida,” Postin said. “Coming in, I didn't really know what 60 meters meant in the hammer. I didn't know it wasn't that big of a mark. Now that I'm doing it, it's pretty cool that I'm almost seven meters past the old school record and it's really all getting started here.”
“You definitely need a spark and someone like him, who came in with no background at all and picked it up really quickly will attract other people,” Lemke said. “We have to have kind of a succession plan in place. While he's here, now as a sophomore, I would love to find a couple of other young kids, maybe with no experience like himself. But now they have a very good model to watch. Now there's a guy on our team that they could really learn from just by watching everyday to see what it takes in terms of the work that you have to put into it, because Jeremy works very hard. He's a good example for what it takes to succeed in any event.”
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If work-ethic is a critical component to the make-up of any successful athlete, attitude may be just as important.
While Postin is often credited with being one of the hardest-working members of Florida's team, if you were to go to an afternoon practice and not pay close attention, you might just miss him.
“Some days, you may not even know he's here,” Lemke said. “He just comes out here and takes care of his business.”
That's not just on the track – DeLancey says Postin's demeanor in the weight room is ideal.
“His attitude is great,” DeLancey said. “Jeremy has been awesome to work with. He is highly motivated and a very hard worker. He is a great kid who loves to train and loves competition.”
According to Lemke, Postin's background has played a key role in his attitude on the track.
“Jeremy has had a very supportive family,” Lemke said. “His mom and dad travel to most of the meets. He is just a very quiet guy. He comes to practice, he shows up, works very hard and leaves. Jeremy is a hard-working, quiet, Midwestern guy from Kansas, with a great work-ethic.”
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Since joining the University of Florida in 2003, DeLancey has had the opportunity to train some of the world's great athletes.
His resume includes three-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ryan Lochte and world-record holder Gemma Spofforth. Entering the 2010-11 school year, athletes under his direction had won 36 NCAA individual championships and 124 SEC individual championships to go along with a stunning 625 All-America honors.
And then, there's Jeremy Postin.
Postin's weight room numbers are staggering. He has been recorded as squatting better than 700 pounds and cleaning upwards of 400 pounds. His power is at a level unheard of for a Florida athlete.
“Pound for pound, Jeremy is the most powerful athlete I work with at Florida,” DeLancey said. “Without a doubt, his weight room work this year has been at an elite level.”
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The Gators begin their quest for their first-ever NCAA Outdoor Championship on Wednesday. Postin will take to the cage on Thursday for his first career appearance in an NCAA Championship setting.
If Florida is fortunate enough to take home a trophy and order championship rings, Postin wants to feel as though he has done everything he can to earn that jewelry.
“My whole goal this year was to score at nationals and actually do something for the team,” Postin said. “That's the main goal.”
For Postin, that ambition is definitely attainable. As for the future, the sky is the limit.
“I want to start being considered one of the best guys in the nation and not just one of the top 12 or top 15,” Postin said. “I want to be in the top five all the time, if not one or two.”
Lemke thinks that Postin's expectations are well within reach and that he is positioned on a course to become one of the all-time best.
“I see Jeremy, by the time he leaves here, being an SEC Champion and an All-American,” Lemke said. “He can be someone who, years from now, people look on our top-10 list and go, you know, that guy was pretty good.”
