A testament to Hannah Dudley's athletic ability is that she's only thrown the discus since January, and she is contending for a spot at this year's state track meet.
Dudley, who threw a career-best 114-feet at last week's 4A trials, needs to finish in the top three at today's finals at Damonte Ranch to reach the May 21-22 state meet.
"I'm pretty surprised," Dudley said earlier this week after a recent practice. "In middle school I was a hurdler. I'm glad I did the discus. It's a lot of fun.
"It's self-challenging. You are competing against yourself. It's a love-hate thing. It is so technical. A little tweak will give you another 10 feet. Other times you can't figure out what you're doing wrong."
Dudley isn't only a discus thrower. She has thrown the shot, run the 200 and 400, run on relays and done the long and triple-jump. That's what appealed to throws coach Mike Louisiana,
"I saw her in preseason workouts for the BYU Indoor meet," Louisiana said. "I asked her if she would like to learn how to throw the discus. She smiled and said yes. I smiled too because she's good at it.
"Her athletic ability is why I asked her. To throw the discus, you have to be an athlete. The discus is a mixture of a lot of things. You have to turn in the middle of the ring like an ice skater does. You have to have speed and explosive power (like a football player) and you have to have long levers (arms). She's so new to this (four months), I don't know how far she can throw. What I like about her is that she's intelligent, coachable and picks up things very well."
Indeed. Dudley has gone from 61 feet at the start of the season to her present 114 feet. A 53-foot improvement. One can't begin to fathom how huge that is and where she would be now if she had thrown as a freshman and sophomore. Dudley isn't sure what it will take to move on from today's meet. She said she would love to throw somewhere between 115 and 120 feet, which should surely move her on.
Dudley's played volleyball and basketball her freshman year and her sophomore year played tennis and basketball. Both years she played volleyball for Capital City, one of the top club programs in the state.
Her junior year? Well, was something to write home about -literally.
She left the comfort zone of her family and applied, and was accepted, to be a page for the House of Representatives. She went to school at the Library of Congress. Dudley had to fill out an application form, maintain a 3.0 or above in core subjects, write a 250-word essay (personal statement), have two letters of recommendation. You also have to be nominated by a congressman. Dudley was nominated by Dean Heller of Carson City.
Pages are appointed for one semester. Pages earn a monthly gross salary of $1,804.83, from which automatic monthly deductions are made for federal and state taxes, social security, and the 35 percent room and board fee.
The primary duties for a page are preparing the House Floor for sessions, carrying and delivering packages up to 25 pounds within the Congressional complex and monitoring phones in member cloakrooms. Generally pages do whatever is needed. They live in dorms and have curfews even on the weekends.
Not all Congressman wear name tags when they're on the floor, so Dudley said she and her colleagues would memorize faces.
"It was a really great experience," said Dudley, who worked her spring semester of her junior year. "You are like a fly on the wall. President Obama was in office. It was an exciting time.
"I don't want to be involved in the political community (when I get older). It was a neat experience to see how the government works. It was a great learning experience." Dudley said she was fortunate enough to meet President Obama once, and that the President would always acknowledge the pages when he was in the building. She said she put plenty of time in, especially when Obama was working on the stimulus package.
And, she even would a glimpse of celebrities like Brad Pitt.
"He was visiting Mrs. Pelosi's office (from California)," Dudley said. "We (another page) knew of a elevator in the back hallway where we might be able to see him. We decided we would wait five minutes. He walked by."
Did Dudley get an autograph?
"I didn't think about it," she admitted. "I had a bunch of pens, too."
BEST BETS TO REACH STATE
Hannah Dudley Discus
Richard Shroy 3,200
Eric Garcia Pole vault
Cameron Childers Pole vault
Boys 3,200 Relay
Alex Fallon, Triple jump
Katie McFarren, 3,200
Luke Carter 110 and 300 hurdles, long jump
Brandon Buonacorsi 400