2023 in Review, and 2023 A New Beginning!
2023 Year In Review
A lot has happened since I’ve updated this site, rest assured, NOTA is still alive and about to embark on a new adventure, but first let me catch you up on the events of 2022.
2023 Ohio High school season was amazing! We qualified (6) athletes for the Indoor State Championships. On the mens side we had seniors Seth Apple and Payton Lammers from Liepsic HS, Sam Worline from Evergreen HS, and junior Nick Bromuth from McComb HS. Seth qualified in both shot put and the weight throw while the others qualified in the weight throw. After the dust settled and a two very competitive events, Nick Bromuth walked walked away in 8th place after hitting a 3 foot personal best 58 feet in the weight throw.
On girls side we qaulified two athletes in the weight throw, senior Anna Barber of Elmwood HS, and sophomore Kinsey Shull of Riverdale HS. The whole season Anna and Kinsey were the top two throwers in Ohio and typically battled each other for first place. The State Meet was no different. Both girls hit life times bests, Kinsey hit a 3 foot personal best of 48’4” which secured her second place, Anna hit a 1 foot personal best of 49’1” which won her the meet. With this win Anna became NOTA’s 47th state champion!
2023 Outdoor Season
Outdoor season is a lot different in that was also amazing but not with out its up’s and downs. August 2022 ended and so did NOTA’s access to its long time outdoor training facility.
Summer of 2022 came and we hit the ground running. I had two throws sessions a day Sunday through Friday as well as lifting sessions 5 days a week. Several NOTA throwers competed at the University of Tiffin (Name Of Meet) throws meet. Kinsey, Anna, Seth, Sam, Nate, and even my self. Kinsey won the women’s open hammer with a life time best of 145’4”, which was the 2nd best mark by a 9th grader in the US. Anna Barber was second with ( ). Seth Apple, was with a distance of and Nate was with a distance of. Sam competed in the Shot put and hit a mark of
A solid summer of training was derailed by the sudden loss of access to our long time training facility. We fell back to my property were I had just enough room throw throw in my yard, and we also utilized the net I have hung in my barn. I started looking a property with the idea of buying some land to build a private throws facility. Nothing came up that fit our needs or my budget.
September came and still no answer to my facility problem. September also brought my second knee surgery on my right knee. A life time of athletics had caught up to me and I needed a scope to remove some lose bodies I had floating around as well as a meniscus tear. Northwest Ohio Orthopedics took great care of me and Dr. Bruce Heck cleaned up my knee and was confident I would regain a lot of my normal motion. I can say now as I write this 8 months later I did, but first I would have to go through the toughest most painful rehabilitation of my life, fraught with set backs and even a trip to the ER with symptoms of a blood clot (thank God no clot). 4 solid months later I was back into shape and had an understanding of my new knee and its new personality.
Over the last 8 years or more I’ve drove through the village of Mt. Blanchard, passing by Hurricane Park probably 1000 times noticing the big grassy athletic fields and wondering why no one was using them. And of course I was thinking of how awesome it would be to put a throws facility in one of those grassy fields. Then the idea came to me, Why not ask, the worst they can say is no. I contacted the Village Administrator, who I knew from church and who just happened to be one of my athletes uncles. I asked him what the chances were of me put a couple pads in one of the fields and do some throwing? To my surprise, he said pretty good! He explained that the fields were not being utilized and the Village was looking for a youth group to get behind and partner with. Originally that that youth program was going to be soccer but that never developed. After sharing a bit about NOTA with the administrator he was impressed and suggested that I present my idea to the village council. Which I did a few days later. The village agreed to allow me to install throwing pads and a cage and to conduct practices there.
With that my wife and I started a fundraising drive to raise money to pay for the initial cost of the concrete. We contacted our amazing NOTA alumina and their families and they come through in a big way! Along with my own contribution we were able to raise half of the start of funds for the first stage of the project, and Mt. Blanchard put up the other half. We were on our way! Well kinda. With all projects things take awhile. With hopes of pouring concrete in October or November, we were delayed several times by contractor schedules and Ohio’s random weather. We finally had concrete down in March of 2023, later than expected, but it was down and the dream was now a reality! After the concrete had set and the forms came off I took the honorific first throw with a hammer. At 49 and in fairly good shape I took an nice easy 3 turn with a 14 lb hammer, that landed around 180 ft, not bad for an old guy! To say the least I was very happy and felt like NOTA now had its forever home. That following Sunday we had our first group practice and everyone was impress with the 25×45 ft 6 ring shot put pad and the 11×35 Hammer/Disc pad. Net phase will include a cage for the hammer/disc pad, a storage unit for equipment, rings the hammer/disc, and shot put along with toe boards.