Jackson graduate Jill Rushin reaches rare air at Mizzou

Jill Rushin proved adept at being king of the hill in high school.

However, the three-time Missouri Class 4 state throwing champion -- two titles in discus and one in shot put -- and 2010 graduate of Jackson High School has moved onto more challenging terrain.

Rushin, a redshirt junior at the University of Missouri, will compete for king of the mountain at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday in Eugene, Oregon.

She is among eight female members of the Missouri track and field team who have qualified, and she packs half of a potent 1-2 punch the Tigers possess in the shot put.

Her 2014 feats include first place in the shot put at the Southeastern Conference meet, and she has launched the second-longest college throw in the country this year at 57 feet, 9 3/4 inches.

"When you're in the 57-foot range in the shot put, you may have to do some digging in shot put history to see how many women have done that," Missouri coach Brett Halter said. "It wasn't that long ago when Jill got on campus that our school record was 55 feet. You talk about climbing mountains and stuff -- she's in that part of Mount Everest that very few human beings ever get to."

One of those humans in that same thin air happens to be Rushin's teammate Kearsten Peoples, owner of the No. 1 throw in the NCAA this year.

It's quite a duo for Halter, who said he had an eerily similar thrower situation about a decade ago when he had Christian Cantwell, who later won a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Games and became a four-time world champion, and Russ Bell.

Cantwell was a 6-foot-6, 340-pound behemoth whom Halter said bench pressed more than 680 pounds. Bell was smaller but had the agility and toughness to play nose tackle for Tigers football coach Gary Pinkel.

"Bell was very athletic, ridiculously fast, very similar in a lot of ways to Jill Rushin," Halter said. "So those guys just wreaked havoc on the NCAA for a long time."

Halter said he never thought such lightning would strike the Missouri throwing program again, but it has in Peoples and Rushin, two blue-chip high school recruits who enrolled on full scholarships in 2010.

"Same thing, different gender," Halter said. "Same year in school, banging against each other day in and day out in school. There was never a day off, the frustration, the appreciation, the admiration, the struggle to beat your teammate, all that stuff they went through."

For much of the time, Rushin has been in the shadow of Peoples, who threw 59 feet as a redshirt freshman to finish fourth at the U.S. Olympic Trials for the 2012 London Games. Only the top three throwers made the team, and Halter said Peoples holds the distinction of the woman with the longest throw to not make an Olympic team in U.S. history.

He said placing two top-level, competitive athletes accustomed to winning in constant competition can make for a testy environment if not handled properly.

"It's been an education process," Halter said. "Neither of them were mature enough at a young age to handle the situation very well."

He described a slow process in the early years where the two might come to practice at different times, then gradually practiced at the same time but threw at different events. Mutual respect and appreciation eventually emerged.

"It's taken four years to get to where we are," Rushin said. "It took a lot of maturing. We were never not friends, but I'd say we got a lot closer the last two years. ... We really are good friends, but we're both very, very competitive. Like we both want to win. We both understand where we're coming from and how hard what we do is ... like how hard it is to lift 400 pounds [squat] and how hard it is to throw a 12-pound shot put at practice. So knowing each other's struggles and knowing how it feels to lose, we understand each other like that.

"Even though it's hard when one of us beats the other, we've both become good sports about it. We've come to learn there's more in life than winning; this is a really fun, fun part of our lives, but it's not everything."

Jill Rushin stands on the podium after winning the shot put event at the SEC champions on May 17. Her teammate Kearston Peoples finished second. (Photo by Jeff Curry)

Rushin said Peoples, who is about the same height -- 5-foot-11 -- has more muscle mass and raw strength. She's grown to appreciate their differences.

"It's really fun having her," Rushin said. "She's one of the reasons where I'm at right now because I've constantly been striving to get as good as her at practice. Like we each have our own quirks. Like she's super, super strong. Like she can lift about 100 pounds more than me in every lift, but what I have on her is flexibility. My feet in the ring are just a little bit faster than her, but she has so much strength. Oh man, it's just ridiculous."

Rushin has been bridging the gap in that department.

She redshirted her freshman outdoor season and her sophomore indoor season, and has met a more steady stream of success during her fourth season at Missouri.

A breakout season occurred after she was able to maintain her weight at 208 pounds throughout the season. In previous years, she said she would drop about 13 pounds over the course of a competitive year. She has had to increase her calorie input to maintain the weight.

"You wouldn't think it would be a problem to have to eat all the time, but it's actually really hard, especially when you're trying to eat, like, good things," she said, laughing. "Basically I had to start eating whatever I wanted whenever I was hungry -- even when I wasn't hungry."

Her weight training, which she started in eighth grade, has ramped up to where she has a projected maximum bench press of 200 pounds and a squat of 400 pounds.

"I think keeping my weight up this year has definitely help me," Rushin said. "My coach calls it 'horsepower.' He says, 'Your horsepower is up and that's because of the weight you've kept on,' because he knows how sensitive girls are about their weight. But honestly, in my opinion, if you feel good, then it shouldn't matter what the scale says. So, I feel good, and I think that's something girls should look at."

Halter said the added horsepower, combined with a continued dedication to technique, has allowed Rushin to elevate her baseline, which is the level of her worst throws.

"You're never as good as your PRs; you're only as good as your baselines," Halter said. "We have to increase that baseline. As that baseline continues to go up, nothing surprises me on the next big mark."

Rushin earned first-team All-American distinction for the first time at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in March, finishing sixth with a throw of 55-2 3/4.

It was an honor Peoples earned for the third time at an NCAA national championship meet, placing third with a throw of 56-9 1/2.

Peoples also claimed her second SEC individual championship by uncorking a mammoth 58-5 1/4 throw in the shot put during the indoor season. The throw tops the NCAA charts this year and outdistanced a third-place Rushin by 5 1/2 feet. It was the third conference championship for Peoples, who also won the Big 12 discus in 2012.

Rushin had finished as high as second in the shot put at the SEC indoor championships in 2013, but trailed Peoples 3-0 in conference titles. That is until she got on the board at the SEC outdoor championships May 17 in Lexington, Kentucky.

Rushin called her father Richard, a former thrower at Jackson and Southeast Missouri State as well as her throwing coach her senior year at Jackson, just before competing. He frequently attends his daughter's events, but on this day his loyalty stayed with his Jackson throwers, who were competing in their district meet.

"I just said, I'm a little nervous but I'm excited, and I'm just going to have fun. And he's like, 'You can do it -- just do your best,'" Jill Rushin said. "It always makes me feel better to talk to him whenever I do."

Rushin proceeded to win the SEC shot put title with a throw of 56-4 3/4. She also finished third in the discus (172-10).

Richard Rushin said he had never before received a call from his daughter so close to her competing time.

"She really felt confident, she knew something big was going to happen at the SECs," said Richard Rushin, who later got a text from his wife, Debby, saying Jill had won.

"It brought tears to my eyes because we had kids throwing in the finals of the shot put, discus at district, and Jill was hanging on because there were three or four girls there that anyone of them could have won it," Richard said.

Halter described the day, in which Peoples finished second to Rushin by less than an inch, as an emotional one.

"You never want to see any of your kids lose," Halter said. "For Jill, it was bittersweet. She had to beat her teammate to do it. But it was thrilling to see ... so many times she's been the bridesmaid. So it's just exciting to see her come out on top and be at the top of the podium. It's been such a long road, constantly second fiddle to Kearsten."

A few days later Rushin was named the SEC Women's Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the outdoor track and field. She carries a 3.87 grade-point average while pursuing degrees in biological sciences and religious studies.

The SEC title was big for Rushin.

"I know it is the highlight right now, but I know there is more to come," she said.

A higher goal can be reached Saturday, but it will require a stellar throw.

"We'll go and do our best, but we all have to recognize that there are six, seven, eight women that are capable of doing what Jill and Kearsten have done already," Halter said.

Rushin finished seventh among the 12 NCAA West Region Preliminary Championship qualifiers with a toss of 54-4, but she merely wanted to advance to the nationals. It was something she failed to do last year after qualifying in 2012 and placing 22nd.

"I was not going all out whatsoever," said Rushin, who qualified on her first throw at the region meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas. "All I was wanting to do was make it in, then go all out at nationals."

Richard Rushin watched his daughter compete at the regional meet and will be in Oregon at the national meet with his family.

He said his daughter loves competing for Halter, who recruited her in his first year as head coach, and being a member of the Missouri team.

"He knows what buttons to push with Jill and he evaluates each thrower and is really good with them," Richard Rushin said. "The last two years in the shot put, she's beyond where I thought she would be -- by far. I always thought she could get up around the 60-foot range, I just didn't know it would be this year."

Jill has a goal of throwing 59 feet on Saturday, which she said she has tossed in practice. Unleashing such a throw would clearly mark her among the top contenders to make the U.S. squad for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which is her ultimate goal.

"She's as much a candidate as anyone else in the United States," Halter said. "It's anyone's game, and if it's not Rio, it should be the Olympiad after that."