Focus and dedication have led Rainier’s Jeremiah Nubbe to top of national high school throws lists

A constant talking point among high school coaches is how playing multiple sports leads to more athletic, well-rounded competitors.

LeBron James played football, helping him become a great basketball player. Aaron Judge is an outlier, too big to be a major league baseball star, but football and basketball created the athleticism that makes him a great hitter. So the theory goes.

Track coaches are often caught in the middle, with typically large turnouts of athletes but with many of those focused on another sport first. Several schools in Thurston County have, in the last decade or so, seen their state track champions go on to play a stick-and-ball sport in college.

Rainier’s Jeremiah Nubbe has broken the mold to become one of the best high school discus and hammer throwers in America by focusing on track and field.

His older brother Jesse had been a lineman on the Mountaineers’ football team, but Nubbe had never been involved in a sport until he went out for track at Rainier Middle School in the seventh grade.

“I did some running and jumping, tried out all the events,” he recalled. “When I tried the discus, I had a knack for it and really wanted to be successful in it. It felt right for me.”

Except for a brief middle school basketball career, Nubbe has stuck to throwing events only since then. It’s not that he couldn’t play other sports.

“It’s different,” Rainier coach Rob Henry said. “We’re a small school (Class 2B) so we’re always pushing kids to do three sports and Jeremiah is so athletic. He can catch an alley-oop pass and dunk a basketball. But he has so much going on outside of school it’s worked for him to focus 100% on track.”

Four years into his track career, the 6-foot-3, 220-pound junior holds the Washington state high school record for a discus throw by a junior after an attempt of 196-0 on Monday during a four-way meet at Tenino. That mark is also good for third among all throwers nationally, behind only Bryce Foster of Texas (210-10) and Kaden Matua of Utah (196-10).

While the WIAA does not sponsor hammer, Nubbe’s mark of 218-5 for his Yelm Track Club team two weeks ago in West Seattle leads the nation’s youth competitors. Rhode Island’s Logan Coles threw farther last season, so Nubbe expects competition in national level meets this summer, but figures he’s in the top four or five at worst.

With Rainier’s middle and high schools side by side on Second Street and sharing the same track, Henry got an early look at Nubbe.

“Watching those junior high meets, you could tell he was a lot farther along than the other kids,” Henry said. “You could tell he was something special. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a kid with the work ethic he has. As soon as he chose the discus, his family put in a discus pad at their house.”

With the 2020 high school and USA Track and Field seasons canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nubbe could only compete in virtual meets — in which each athlete streamed their attempts and marks — and specialized meets in Portland sponsored by the Super Throwers Club.

In large part, Nubbe was on his own.

“I stuck to the plan I had for training before COVID-19,” he said. “Five days a week of throwing and lifting. There was no school, so I did have more time to devote to it. I kept it consistent.”

Nubbe’s current discus personal record is nearly 50 feet farther than the 147-1 throw he used to win the 2B state championship in 2019, and nearly 16 feet farther than his virtual season best from 2020, a 180-6 1/2. His hammer personal best is 21 feet beyond his best from last spring.

Henry thinks Nubbe, a top Division I prospect with a 4.0 grade point average who plans to major in engineering with a minor in business, has plenty of upside, allowing him to challenge the state record of 207-2 set by Vinnie Pecht of West Valley of Spokane in 1997. Ryan Crouser of Oregon set the national mark of 237-6 in 2011. Crouser is also the current world record holder in the indoor shot put (74-10).

“He’s gotten a lot stronger and quicker,” Henry said. “He’s going to work through the summer. He can get a lot more speed. He’s driven and has the work ethic to back it up. He’s a once-in-a-generation talent. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get that mark.”

Though Nubbe will also throw the shot (54-7 personal best) and javelin (148-4 personal best) to pick up points for Rainier, his training is solely focused on the discus and hammer.

“I have five days to practice each week, so I’m going to put them into what my priorities are,” he said. “Coaches have said it’s not a good idea to do events you don’t practice. But as long as I warm up properly and do the techniques to the degree I know them, I can throw the shot and the jav for the team.”

A priority Nubbe doesn’t always enjoy is a diet that demands he eat nearly 5,000 calories per day to keep up his body weight, leading to meat and vegetables at breakfast, two more full meals and a protein shake before bed.

“It’s a lot and it’s not easy, especially when you’re doing school work and everything else,” he said. “It takes time to eat as much as I need to.”

With another year left of high school, Nubbe may have more records to set and state championships to pursue, but he’s looking forward to college and the greater intensity of competing with year-around coaching.

“The high school season is so short, especially this year, I do so much of my training on my own,” he said. “It will be a real blessing to throw with other people and to have coaches around me at every practice. That will make a big difference.”

This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.