The long jump west
Notre Dame student Charlie Poretti going to University of Hawaii on track and field scholarship
Charlie Poretti will be studying accounting, not geography, at University of Hawaii after she graduates from Notre Dame College School in Welland.
However, one doesn’t have to be a master of maps, let alone a roads scholar, to appreciate that a campus in Honolulu has it all over southern Ontario or North Carolina when it comes to a budding CPA counting her blessings in a tropical location.
No contest. Aloha, ice, snow and slush.
“I mean, why not?” Poretti exclaimed with a laugh, a look of incredulity on her face, when asked why she accepted a track and field scholarship from the school farthest away from her relatively new home.
“I feel like accounting is not one of those things where you need an amazing school to get you started,” the 17-year-old said. “I could go to the best school for accounting, but I wouldn’t be getting the same experiences as I would there.”
Brock, Guelph, Toronto and two universities in North Carolina — Campbell and Elon — also were interested in the Hamilton native who moved to Welland two years ago.
Location, first and foremost, factored in the decision to accept a fouryear scholarship that will pay for everything but a meal plan.
To a lesser extent, having a friend from Welland on the Rainbow Warriors track and field team also earned Hawaii a mark on the plus side of the ledger. Alexis Brenzil, a Welland Centennial Secondary School graduate, will begin her sophomore year in September.
“That helped out at the beginning, but it didn’t decide for me if I was going to go there,” Poretti said. “She’ll be there to help me out and show me the way for the first few years, but that wasn’t the deciding factor between Elon and Campbell.”
The daughter of John Poretti and Kim Kaspersetz isn’t worried about becoming homesick six time zones away from home.
“A lot of people are like home bodies, and I’m not,” Poretti said. “I’ll go wherever and whenever.
“I already flew to Hawaii by myself for five days.”
When the time came to commit to a school, a program’s reputation in track and field didn’t tip the scales one way or the other for Poretti.
“It’s a D 1 (Division 1) school, so it’s the top level in the NCAA, but it’s not just about the school,” she said. “It’s if you can get the right athletes who can bring the team up and bring them further. That’s really what counts.”
Poretti suggested just because one long jumper in a program doesn’t get as far it doesn’t necessarily follow that her success would also be limited if she chose that school. “It’s an individual sport.” She literally hit the ground jumping during her campus visit to Hawaii. A “sunrise meet” involving four schools was held on the Saturday of her stay in Honolulu and she was given the opportunity to take part in the open competition.
“I came second in hurdles and I won long jump.”
Poretti’s personal best in the long jump is 5.72 metres and her personal best in 60-metre hurdles indoors is 9.07.
Hawaii recruited her as a long jumper but she may go out for the triple jump as well.
Poretti is ultra-competive — “Of course, everybody likes to win,” she said — but finishing first, for the sole sake of winning, isn’t her No. 1 motivator.
“I like to win, but it’s not exactly what I do it for,” she said. “When I set a goal at a meet, I don’t set a goal of getting a gold or bronze, I think of how far I want to jump or if I want to fix a certain part of my form.”
This is especially the case for Poretti when it comes to hurdles on a cinder track, and overcoming them.
“Hurdles is so mental,” she said. “It took me three months to get over one hurdle, but then you just keep working at it.”
Paul Peebles, a coach with Niagara Regional Athletics, has been working with Poretti for the past four years. He has no trouble seeing her succeed in Division 1, pointing out that her work ethic is second to none.
“Good grief, there are very few athletes I’ve worked with who want to be at the gym every day to move to that next level,” Peebles said of Poretti ,who is juggling academics with athletics along with a part-time job at Tim Hortons.
“Some come to track practices Mondays and Thursdays, but other than that she’s on her own.”
“She’s out there six days a week. I have to pull her back and say ‘Take a break, you need to recover.’”
Poretti is focusing on building her strength and adding muscle to her small frame.
“My form is getting so much better,” she said. “If I go to the gym and build up some muscle that will take me that step farther in jumping.”
“Her technique is already there, so you just add the strength to the technique,” Peebles said. “That strength, added to the technique, takes you to the next level.
“She will have four years of strength and continued technique to advance and get better.”
Surprisingly, Poretti has yet to compete in an Ontario high school track and field championship. She missed provincials as a Grade 9 student due a leadership camp and was ineligible to compete for Notre Dame the following year after transferring from a high school in Hamilton.
Last year she faulted out failing to qualify.
She hopes to compete next month when the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association championships taking place in Belleville, though only in the long jump. She bowed out of hurdles as her prom will be held on the same day.