Nailing the hammer
High-schooler is heading to Berkeley this fall and already has eyes on the 2020 Olympics
Camryn Rogers has eyes on a legal career one day, but the ambitious Richmond student wants to first add an Olympic gold medal to her resume
Camryn Rogers may want to be a lawyer one day. Her attention to detail will serve her well if she goes that route.
Rogers, a McMath Grade 12 student who is one of the top young hammer throwers in the country, can tell you how many days (120 as Thursday) before she leaves for the University of California, Berkeley, where she’s committed for next season, and how many days before her Richmond school’s valedictory (71).
She can also tell you one of the days when she thinks her life changed. With steadfast conviction, she rapidly fired off Jan. 5, 2012.
That’s when she attended her first practice with the Richmond Kajaks Track and Field Club. Until then, Rogers had dabbled in few extracurricular activities (“I had taken one hip-hop class, and I had played a little volleyball in elementary school,” she said) and she was coaxed into the Kajaks by her mother, Shari, who had heard positive things about the club from clients at her hairdressing job.
The first person Camryn met with was Kajaks’ throws coach Richard Collier, and he pointed her to the hammer right away.
“I told him, ‘that looks like a weapon,’ ” Rogers, 17, recalled of that first foray. “After a lot of attempts, I started to get the hang of it, and I’ve never really looked back.
“That was a big day for me. I went from someone not doing any sports and doing just OK in school to starting to become the kind of person I had always wanted to become.”
There have been massive successes along the way, including athletically.
She won a pair of gold medals at last year’s high school provincial championships, highlighted by taking the hammer with a throw of 59.15 metres, which bettered the previous meet record of 55.09 set in 2003 by Seaquam’s Catrina Chisholm.
And, just last weekend at SFU’s Emilie Mondor Invitational, Rogers broke her own national Under-20 record in the hammer with a throw of 61.01.
Her previous best was 59.73, set last May.
Of course, there have been heartbreaking challenges, too. Collier was a mentor. He died in December of 2015 at age 74.
When it came time to take a photograph of her signing the letter of intent for Berkeley, Rogers made sure there was a picture of Collier on the table.
Rogers’ new coach is Collier’s son Garrett who, oddly enough, was a hammer thrower at Berkeley.
“Both Garrett and Richard have been so very supportive and dedicated to their athletes,” said Rogers. “They’ve had so many amazing stories to share.
“Richard was so full of passion. He had this energy about him, and especially when he told his stories. When he started telling his stories, you wouldn’t dare say a word. You didn’t want to miss anything. It was incredible. And I think it’s the same with Garrett.”
Richard was a believer in Rogers right from the beginning, it would seem. Garrett remembered his dad telling him in the early stages of working with Rogers that he was “starting to coach a girl with huge potential.”
Garrett added: “Camryn concerns herself with getting better and not settling for her current success. She has the right balance of commitment, determination, humility and talent.”
Rogers did a work experience at a law firm recently and enjoyed it so much that she may start steering that way academically when she heads to Berkeley.
That said, don’t expect her to focus on the judge’s gavel and give up on the hammer anytime soon. Rogers’ 61.01 effort at the Mondor was the fourth-best performance in the Under-20 age group in the world this season.
Cuban Ayamey Medina, 19, has the tops, with a 65.85.
It would seem to put Rogers in select company right now and she admitted she dares to dream about the Olympics. The vast majority of top finishers in women’s hammer at the Rio 2016 Games were at least 28 years of age, so Tokyo 2020 might be early for her. That said, the seventh-place finisher in Brazil just turned 23.
“It’s something I always push myself to get to and I want to achieve those levels,” Rogers said. “The past couple of years, I’ve noticed that I’ve learned how to plan out my future, and Grade 12 has taken it to a whole other level.
“I’m planning for years down the road and I’m hoping that Olympics is part of my journey.”