April 2005 Stories

Nicole Lindquist: Creating a Legal Link

If you live in the Willamette Valley and you’re poor and in need of legal help, chances are good you won’t get it. Senior politics major and Carson Scholar Nicole Lindquist decided she could help change that.

“Eighty percent of low-income Oregonians who have legal problems don’t get the help they need,” says Lindquist, who received a $2,500 Carson Undergraduate Research Grant which helps students conduct original, independent research. “Free legal aid is available. Why aren’t people getting it? I decided to study the barriers that prevent poor people from getting free legal help.”

Lindquist spent six weeks volunteering at the Marion-Polk Legal Aid Services, a non-profit legal center staffed by attorneys and paralegals. They provide free legal services to residents of Marion and Polk counties whose income is no more than 125 percent of the federal poverty level. The problem is, like many other legal aid service centers, Marion-Polk Legal Aid Services is operating at maximum capacity and can’t handle more clients. “I thought that perhaps they could improve certain processes and then they’d be able to take more clients,” says Lindquist, who spent her time at the center doing data entry, answering phones, conducting client intakes, observing attorney-client meetings and going to court. “It turned out that Marion-Polk Legal Aid is one of the premiere free legal services in Oregon. They’re doing an excellent job.”

That excellent work put Lindquist back at square one. She broadened her research by exploring other legal aid services across Oregon, talking to staff about what they do, how they do it and what they need. What she found left her feeling discouraged. “After doing all this research, I felt disillusioned with the system. There’s really no funding available for legal services for the poor. There’s no energy to reform the old system or to create a new system.”

She also felt overwhelmed by the complexities that poverty presents. “Poverty is far worse than most of us think. I listened to stories of women who are fighting to get out of poverty and domestic violence situations. They face so many barriers – transportation, childcare, mental instability, emotional stress. As I listened to their stories, I kept wondering what I’d do if I had no where to go, no resources, and I was sitting on a curb with my child and my few possessions.”

As the weeks wore on, Lindquist’s project seemed to be floundering. “I felt lost because I had no defined end result. I was supposed to do research, hone in on a problem and create a solution. But my problem kept changing; my research didn’t go the way I wanted; and much of the time I had no idea where I was going with all of this. I just had to trust that it would all come together.”

The solution turned out to be incredibly simple – a computer link. Many area non-profit social service organizations use a website called oregonhelp.org that helps low-income people find the services they need. During intake sessions at the agencies, clients are taught not only how to access the site, but how to use the computer and where to find free internet access. The site does not, however, offer legal services. Lindquist found a second website called oregonlawhelp.org that addresses the legal needs of low-income residents. “I figured if I could link oregonlawhelp.org and oregonhelp.org, we could reach many more people.”

Lindquist negotiated with the two organizations and got them to agree to link their websites. “I told them this is a really cheap solution and that they could do it quickly to help a lot of people.” The organizations agreed.

While she knows a computer link isn’t going to solve all the legal problems faced by poor people in Marion and Polk Counties, Lindquist says her project taught her that it takes creativity, not necessarily money, to make a difference. “You have to think outside the box. No matter what the problem is, there are going to be funding limitations. It’s easy to say it would be better if we funded these organizations appropriately, but that’s not going to happen. There are just too many needs. We have to stop thinking that we have to change the system. We have to try to revamp the system in ways that are both effective and low-cost.”

It’s also taught her that she has a calling to help. “When I see someone who hasn’t got enough to eat or who has an abusive husband, it just squeezes my heart. I can’t forget about it until I do something. It’s my duty, my calling to help.”

Lindquist, who previously thought she wanted to pursue a legal career, isn’t sure where her calling will lead. She’s currently applying for fellowships and plans to return to graduate school within two years to earn an advanced degree. “I want to be a social activist. I’m not sure if the best place for me is working in radio journalism, in public policy or at a non-profit. I know for sure that I want to help change the world.”

Maria Olivares: Lessons in Clay

Maria Olivares steps off the bus onto the dusty road. As the bus pulls away, she surveys the handful of claptrap buildings that make up the tiny Mexican Indian village of Tlacolula. It’s not quite noon, but already the sun feels hot. A rivulet of sweat runs down Olivares’ back as she shifts her heavy backpack. She scans the street anxiously. The driver said to look for a market where she would find a camioneta to take her to the village of San Macros Tlapazola. She’s not sure what a camioneta looks like.

“¿Por favor, donde esta el mercado? ¿Camioneta?” she asks as several women in colorful dresses pass her. They glance shyly at her, giggle and then begin chattering in their native Zapotec, a language Olivares doesn’t understand. Although the black hair and dark complexion of her half-Mexican heritage blends in here, Olivares’ Western clothing stands out. Men, women and children stare openly as she makes her way down the narrow lane. “Dondé esta el mercado? ¿Camioneta por favor?”

She walks for several blocks, her backpack feeling heavier by the minute. Did she get off at the wrong stop, she wonders? Maybe the man on the internet who promised to set up a pottery internship for her with a native potter has given her the wrong directions. How long before the bus from Oaxaca comes back this way?

Olivares stops in a sliver of shade, slides off her backpack and squats against a concrete building. She feels like crying. A brown woman in a fuchsia-colored dress and blue apron strides across the dirt road and approaches her. “Camioneta,” the woman says, pointing down the street.

Olivares scrambles to her feet. “Si, si camioneta para San Marcos,” she replies, nodding vigoriously. Olivares follows the woman past a tiny market into an even narrower alleyway where the woman points to a battered white Nissan pick-up with a green awning covering the back. “¿Camioneta?” Olivares asks. The woman nods and smiles broadly, showing a large gap where two upper teeth should be.

Several women in long dresses and skirts and men in jeans and straw cowboy hats mingle in and around the pick-up. Olivares can see two hard wooden benches have been bolted to the sides of the pick-up’s bed. “San Marcos?” she asks the group shyly. She clambers into the truck. “What the heck am I doing?” she mumbles

An hour later, when the back of the truck is packed with a dozen or so passengers, they begin bouncing down the dusty track. The women stare and point at Olivares. Finally, one of them asks her in Spanish, “Why are you going to San Marcos?” Olivares tells them she’s going to see Macrina, a local potter, to learn how to make pottery using traditional Mexican Indian techniques. Her revelation is followed by excited whispering in Zapotec.

Twenty bone-wrenching minutes later, the camioneta pulls into San Marcos Tlapazola and Olivares piles out with the others. She looks down the village’s street, but she can’t see any houses, just concrete walls surrounding family compounds. She has no idea which one belongs to Macrina’s family. A fellow passenger leads her to an iron gate and Olivares knocks.

The woman who answers the door is in her 40s, short and stocky, dressed in a shiny blue dress that’s covered with a long apron decorated with hand-stitched birds and flowers. Her long jet black hair is pulled into a thick braid that’s woven with a wide red ribbon. This is Alberta, Macrina’s aunt. At first, Alberta thinks Olivares is there to buy pottery. Once she makes it clear that she’s Maria Olivares, the ceramics student from the United States, Alberta welcomes her warmly. “Dios mio, we were sure you weren’t coming,” says the woman. She explains that Macrina is in Oaxaca selling pottery and should return in a few hours.

Olivares stashes her backpack in a corner and follows Alberta across a dirt courtyard into a bare concrete room. It feels cool inside. The walls of the eight-foot square space that serves as Alberta’s pottery studio are painted robin’s egg blue. There is no furniture except for a small, black and white T.V. mounted near the ceiling in one corner blaring a tela novella, a Mexican soap opera. In the center of the room’s concrete floor a woven reed mat holds Alberta’s pottery-making tools – a dried corn cob, shards of gourds, strips of leather and pieces of metal – and a pile of yellowish clay. Alberta removes her shoes and kneels on a thin foam pad, inviting Olivares to do the same.

With skill honed since childhood, Alberta pulls off a lump of clay and quickly kneads out the air bubbles and mixes in sand, which she explains makes the clay stronger. Working quickly, she shows Olivares how to make small vases or ollas. She forms the clay into a cone and then uses her fingers to hollow it out. Using the dried corn cob, she pulls the clay up against her hands, forming the sides of the small vessel. She adds pieces of wet clay to make the pot taller. Once the pot is the size and shape she wants, she puts it onto a piece of gourd and places the gourd onto a hollowed-out stone pedestal that acts like a turntable. She again adds pieces of wet clay, pulling the sides up with the corn cob. Finally, she uses a piece of wet leather to swipe the edge of the pot, smoothing it. Alberta smiles and proudly holds up the vessel. In less than 10 minutes, she’s produced a beautifully formed pot that rivals those made on a pottery wheel. “Can you do this?” she asks.

For the next several hours, Olivares labors over small lumps of clay, trying to perfect her use of the crude pottery tools. A studio art major at Willamette University, Olivares is accustomed to making pottery with more sophisticated tools. Alberta makes forming tall pots look easy. Olivares struggles to build small vessels.

The air cools as the afternoon shadows lengthen. There’s a flurry of activity in the courtyard as Macrina finally returns from Oaxaca. When Alberta introduces Olivares, Macrina squeals, “Que milagro (what a miracle)!”

Within a few minutes, Macrina and Olivares agree that the young student will stay with the family during her two-week internship. She will use part of her $2,500 Carson Undergraduate Research Grant to pay Macrina for room and board and for pottery lessons.

Olivares is shown to a room similar in size to Alberta’s studio. This room, plain and comfortable, contains a small couch and single bed. The bed is covered with thin blankets and no pillow. When Olivares sits on the bed, she’s surprised to find plastic still covers the mattress.

The afternoon winds into evening. Children play in the courtyard. The women make pots, while Olivares observes. Occasionally, they stop to wash clothing or toss sticks onto the open fire in the cooking shack. Before the sun sets completely, the men in the family return from the fields, dusty from their efforts to grow corn, beans and pumpkins in the dry earth.

Around nine o’clock, the family gathers around a wooden table for the evening meal – rice, black beans, shredded chicken and homemade tortillas the size of small pizzas. The food fills Olivares’ stomach, but is also provides deeper sustenance. Her grandmother talked about preparing these same foods in her native Mexico. Now Olivares is experiencing them firsthand; tasting what her grandmother’s life must have been like.

Morning comes early in San Marcos. The sun hasn’t risen, yet the women in the family are already busy preparing for the day. Several women sit in a corner shucking dried corn. Another grinds the corn on a matate into masa, a soft dough, for tortillas. Still another forms the large tortillas and bakes them in a flat pan on the open fire. The only sound is the murmur of the women’s voices and an occasional rooster.

Olivares has been with the family for several days. She’s become accustomed to the slow pace of life here. From dawn to dinnertime every day of the week, the men work the fields and the women do chores – cooking, sewing, washing – and make pottery. The college student doesn’t rise with the others at 5 a.m. Instead, she sleeps in until eight or nine and then enjoys a cup of hot chocolate and a piece of sweet bread for breakfast before beginning her lessons.

Pottery making generally begins around 11 o’clock. Each day, Olivares learns something new about traditional Mexican pottery making. Throughout the state of Oaxaca, numerous indigenous villages produce their own distinctive style of pottery. Here in San Marcos, they’re known for making functional ware that’s uniformly red and smooth without decorative elements. Although sometimes Macrina makes animalitos, little animals, most of the pottery is strictly tradition-bound. They’ve been making San Marcos style pottery for generations and no one sees the need to change it.

A distinguishing characteristic of San Marcos pottery is the red color. Once the pots are semi-dry, the potters dip them in a slurry of special red clay they dig in the hills surrounding the village. To make the pots smooth, the women rub or burnish them with a smooth stone, sometimes for hours at a time. Macrina shows Olivares a flat stone the size of a small egg. “This is a special stone,” she says, fingering the smooth surface. It fits neatly into the palm of her hand. “Not all stones will work on the pots. This was my grandmother’s. She gave me this stone.”

Macrina holds a large 20-inch pot in one hand and rubs the surface with her burnishing stone. She moves the stone in short strokes, working quickly. As she rubs, the pot begins to take on a smooth sheen.

Olivares uses a stone Alberta has given her to burnish her smaller pots. She rubs back and forth, but instead of achieving a uniformly smooth surface, her pot shows the stone’s rub marks. It will take some practice to achieve the San Marcos smoothness.

On days the pots need to dry or when Macrina leaves to sell her wares, Olivares travels back and forth on the camioneta and the bus to Oaxaca City. She spends her days strolling the plazas and visiting museums and galleries. She finds the trips a refreshing break from the sameness of Indian village life.

Back in San Marcos, it’s Friday, firing day. About once a week, when it’s dry, the women fire their wares. The pots have been warming in the sun since early morning. This prevents them from breaking from thermal shock in the fire. Olivares and the women have laid a fire of sticks and bull dung in the center of the courtyard. Marcina shows Olivares how to neatly stack the pottery, using small shards of fired clay between the pots to ensure each pot is evenly fired. Then they cover the mound of pots with dung, sticks, leaves and old paper bags and light the fire. For the next 45 minutes or so, Olivares, Macrina and Alberta feed the fire with sticks and dung, keeping the flames licking around the pots. Then they let the fire die down, allowing the pots to cool naturally for the next couple of hours. When they finally brush away the ash, the pots, a deep, rich red, shine in the sun.

Olivares’ two weeks in San Marcos are nearly up. She’s supposed to travel to another pottery village, but she feels ill. She thinks it’s just a gastrointestinal upset from unfamiliar food or water, but, later it’ll turn out that she’s contracted Giardia, a particularly nasty water-borne bug that requires powerful antibiotics to combat it. Within a few days, she’ll decide to forego more travel and return home a week earlier than she’d planned.

But today, she fights off the queasy feeling and follows Macrina out into the fields. Normally, the women dig for the ochre-colored clay during December when the fields are fallow and the clay is easy to spot. Olivares, eager to embrace the full experience of making traditional Mexican pottery, has convinced Macrina to show her how to dig the clay. At Alberta’s and Macrina’s suggestion, Olivares has donned a traditional Zapotec dress – a bright pink, puffy sleeved sateen that’s covered with a long apron decorated with vibrant red and green needlepoint flowers.

Using a stick, Macrina pokes at the topsoil, swiping it away until she spots a yellow vein of clay. If this were a normal clay gathering trip, they’d fill a pick-up with the stuff and haul it back to the compound where they store it in a cool, concrete room until it’s needed. Today, they dig several pounds, enough for a few pots, and take it home.

As Olivares clutches her bundle of yellow clay and follows Macrina’s footsteps along the path, she stops for a moment and gazes across the valley. In that moment, she knows that coming here was exactly what she was meant to do. For the first time, her parents’ blaring banda music, her grandmother’s molé sauce, her aunt’s Mexican gifts – her own Mexican heritage – come into brilliantly clear perspective. She smiles and continues down the hill.

Litchfield Student Wins National Scholarship

Jessica Clausen, a freshman majoring in German and economics from Litchfield, Minn., has been named a Kemper Scholar. She’s the first Willamette University student to receive this prestigious national award.

The Kemper Scholar Program, sponsored by the James S. Kemper Foundation of Chicago, prepares students for leadership and service, especially in the fields of administration and business. The Foundation believes that undergraduate study of liberal arts is the best preparation for life and a career. Willamette University is one of only 15 universities selected to participate in the Kemper Scholar Program.

Each Kemper Scholar receives scholarships of $3,000 to $8,000 per year for three years; $2,000 to $6,000 for internships in the sophomore and junior summers; and full support to attend the annual Kemper Scholar Conference for three years. Winning a Kemper Scholarship isn’t easy. Clausen submitted an application, resume and three essays before participating in two rounds of interviews, including an in-depth interview with Thomas Hellie, executive director of the Kemper Foundation.

“I am extremely excited about being selected as a Kemper Scholar,” says Clausen, who plans to pursue a career in international business. “I am looking forward to the new experiences and new challenges that the Kemper Program will provide. I’m especially looking forward to the internships, including the second summer internship, which I will get to design with help and guidance from the Kemper Foundation.”

Dr. Monique Bourque, Willamette University director of student academic grants and awards, says Clausen’s demonstrated leadership qualities made her a standout for the Kemper Foundation. “Jessica has an extensive record of high school leadership and service,” she says. “Here at Willamette, she is a member of the Circle K service organization, a freshman class senator in the student senate and she plays intramural volleyball and flag football where she serves as team captain.”

Bennett Wins Fellowship for Worldwide Adventure

Danielle Bennett, a senior biology major from Susanville, Calif., has been granted a Watson Fellowship for 2005-2006 that will take her to exotic locales around the world.

Bennett will use her $31,000 Watson fellowship to travel to seven different countries, including Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Spain and Argentina. She plans to examine the relationship between horses and humans and how they communicate. She’ll meet with master horseman to explore regional variations in handling horses and study horses in different regions to help unravel questions about evolutionary differences between breeds.

Danielle is the fourth Willamette student to receive a Watson fellowship since 2002. Up to 50 schools are allowed to nominate students and 50 fellowships are awarded each year. This year, 184 students interviewed for the coveted awards.

Bennett’s journey will allow her to combine her lifelong passion for horses, her interest in biology and her love of travel. “During in my sophomore year, I studied in Tanzania and visited China for a month, which sparked my interest in travel,” says Bennett, who comes from a well-known family of Lassen County horsemen. “I’m interested in wildlife ecology and this trip will allow me to explore evolutionary questions and study how horses and people communicate in different parts of the world. I want to record the lives of master horsemen and look at their techniques in dealing with horses. I’m also interested in see how people around the world care for horses’ feet and hooves.”

Bennett will leave for her trip on July 31. She will marry her fiancé Jay Harris, a 2004 Willamette University graduate, the day before and they will make the journey together. Bennett and Harris both plan to enroll in graduate school when they return.

Chiono Selected for Udall Scholarship

Anton Chiono, of Summer Lake, Ore., has been named a Udall Scholar.

The Udall Foundation awards scholarships of up to $5,000 to college sophomores and juniors who demonstrate outstanding potential and a commitment to pursuing careers related to the environment and to Native American and Alaska Native college sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated outstanding potential and a commitment to careers related to tribal public policy or health care.

Chiono, a junior environmental sciences major, received one of 80 prestigious scholarships awarded for 2005 from 436 nominations from 211 colleges and universities.

“My success with the Udall Scholarship is due largely to the guidance of our grants and awards directors,” says Chiono, who is also a recipient of a Hatfield Scholarship, which recognizes students of extraordinary potential for achievement in public service. “Over three years ago, Dr. Jane Curlin [Willamette’s former director of academic grants and awards] helped me identify my areas of interest and set me to thinking about shaping my experiences. Dr. Monique Bourque, the current director, helped me revise and edit many drafts of my application essay.”

Chiono, who is also a member of the varsity baseball team, has already amassed an impressive range of experience in issues related to the environment. He worked on bird-banding and waterfowl population surveys for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He volunteered for the Nature Conservancy on bird banding and trout-tagging projects. He served on two Oregon watershed councils. On campus, he has been a research assistant, tutor and teaching assistant in the biology department and is a co-founder and member of the Rod & Reel Club.

Chiono is particularly interested in forest management. Growing up in part of the state that is largely dependent on the logging industry, Chiono became interested in the forest as both a resource and a problem. During the past three summers, he has worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Summer Lake area. In fall 2004, he lived in Washington, D.C., for four months during an internship with the office of Oregon’s U.S. Senator Gordon Smith, where he explored the intricacies of federal forest policy legislation.

D’Ambrosio Wins Truman Scholarship

Kate D’Ambrosio, a junior majoring in politics and history from Missoula, Mont., has been named a 2005 Truman Scholar.

The Truman Foundation awards grants of up to $30,000 to college juniors to help them pursue graduate or professional degrees to prepare for careers in public service. D’Ambrosio is one of only 75 national Truman Scholars selected from of 237 candidates from 152 institutions.

Being considered for a prestigious Truman Award takes a lot of work. Winning one takes even more. “Completing the application for the Truman Award was like taking another class,” says D’Ambrosio. “During my sophomore year, Willamette had prospective applicants complete the Truman application and participate in a mock interview with a panel of Willamette University professors and students. The University then selected four students to apply for the national scholarship competition. Completing the application was really difficult and I wrote 15 different drafts of it. I then participated in three more mock interviews with Willamette professors, students and members of the community at large.”

Students selected for final interviews compete in regional interviews around the country. D’Ambrosio flew to Denver, Colo., to meet with the Truman selection committee.

“After that, you just sit and wait,” D’Ambrosio said.

Truman Scholars are chosen on the basis of their community service and demonstrated leadership, academic record and commitment to a career in public service. “Truman Scholars are future change agents,” explains Monique Bourque, director of academic grants and awards at Willamette University. Her office assists students in preparing for the competitive selection process. “They are students who have the passion, intellect and leadership potential to change the way public entities&nbap;– from government to nonprofits, schools and advocacy groups&nbap;– serve the public good. In the last six years, eight Willamette students have been awarded Truman Scholarships. It’s quite an honor.”

D’Ambrosio has been active on campus as a staff writer for The Collegian, as a member of the varsity track and cross country team and the Willamette Events Board. She’s also been a volunteer at Parrish Middle School and at the American Red Cross. She has worked as an intern for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C., for the Oregon Department of Forestry, and as a member of a fire crew for the U.S. Forest Service in her native Montana.

In addition to the Truman Award, D’Ambrosio has also been awarded a 2005 Honorable Mention for the Udall Scholarship. The Udall Foundation awards scholarships of up to $5000 to college sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated outstanding potential and a commitment to pursuing careers related to the environment and to Native American and Alaska Native college sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated outstanding potential and a commitment to careers related to tribal public policy or health care. This year, the Foundation awarded 80 scholarships and 50 Honorable Mentions.

D’Ambrosio hopes to attend graduate school and pursue a joint degree in law and natural resources management. “I’d like to work for the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution and eventually for the U.S. Forest Service.”

Walker Wins Prestigious Fulbright Award

Jessica Walker, a senior majoring in cultural anthropology from Sebastopol, Calif., has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright grant to teach English in Korea.

The Fulbright program, administered by the Institute for International Education of the U.S. State Department, allows recent graduates to travel to more than 140 countries each year to take classes or conduct research projects to “foster mutual understanding among nations through education and cultural exchange.”

“I was interested in the Fulbright program for what it offers for traveling, living and working in a foreign country,” says Walker, who submitted an application, resume and two lengthy essays in the Fulbright competition. “I’m especially interested in teaching English.”

Walker believes her background in cultural anthropology makes her well suited to working internationally. “As a anthropology major, I’m sensitive to the similarities and differences between cultures and am very interested in learning about and from other cultures in the world.”

Walker has been active on the Willamette University campus as a director of S.H.E. (Strength, Health and Equality), a campus gender equality organization, and she served as co-director of the fall 2004 production of “Breast Play.” She has honed her teaching skills as a special education teacher, in service learning programs at Bush Park Elementary school in Salem and as a study abroad student in Ecuador.

When Walker returns from her 13-month adventure in South Korea, she hopes to work for Teach for America, a national teacher corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach and effect change in under-resourced urban and rural public schools. She then plans to return to school to pursue an advanced degree in educational administration.

Willamette senior Nate Matlock has his eye on 200-foot mark

Nate Matlock is back in the hammer ring, making noise in his final season for the Willamette Bearcats.

The thud is not just the 15-pound ball hitting the ground 170 to 180 feet away. It’s the loud chant after another long throw by the Bearcat athlete.

Not only is Matlock continuing his amazing improvement in the hammer throw but he has lofty goals to help the Bearcats in other events this season.

He wants to win the hammer, shot put and discus in the Northwest Conference meet and qualify for the NCAA Division III meet in the hammer and discus.

“I think I can make it in the discus, and I’d like to finish in the top three in the hammer,” he said.

At the rate of his steady improvement and with added strength and weight this spring, these could be realistic goals for the former Bearcat all-star football defensive end.

For example, Matlock was throwing the hammer in the 150 range at this time last season. He threw 177-10 on March 12 and 172-0 on March 19.

Matlock and his teammates will try and add to their marks Friday and Saturday in the Willamette Invitational at McCulloch Stadium. The hammer competition is at 4 p.m. Friday behind the Math Learning Center, 1850 Oxford St. SE. The other weight events are Saturday.

“The weather has helped, but a lot of it is because I’ve gained a lot of weight and I’m stronger,” he said. “Last year at this time, I was 230-235; now, I’m 265.”

Matlock, 6-foot-4, said he’s the heaviest he’s ever been for track mainly due to an intense weight training routine the past three months supervised by Soren Sorensen, the WU throws coach.

“It helps in your throw,” Matlock said. “If you have your technique right, everything after that is strength. Soren is an old power lifter. He’s all about getting bigger and stronger.”

Sorensen, a former NAIA all-America thrower at Western Oregon, said his program is designed to build strength early in the season.

“My program has more volume than some,” he said. “Nate’s body is tired because of high-volume workouts. We start peaking for nationals now, but he’s three months ahead of schedule. He’s put up numbers he hadn’t put up until conference.”

Sorensen remains surprised by Matlock’s development in the hammer, an event he began throwing at Willamette.

“I’ve never had a kid at this age improve so much like he has,” Sorensen said. “A lot of it has to do with his track training. But he’s always been a football guy doing track. This year he’s devoted through nationals for track.”

Matlock, who originally went to Wyoming, came to Willamette four years ago to play football. He enjoyed an all-star career by gaining several honors, including 2003 NWC defensive player of the year and 2004 Division III Coaches Association all-America team.

Because of his improvement and the unusual nature of the hammer, Matlock enjoys it the most of his events. Four years ago, that wouldn’t have been the case.

“In my first meet I threw 98 feet,” he said. “I didn’t know how to do it. I used one turn. It takes awhile because it’s so awkward. No one ever comes out and throws it right away.

Most guys do three spins. I do four spins because it helps me. Every spin I do I get faster. A lot of guys can’t control it and go out of the ring. Sometimes, it’s hard to stay in. If you’re footing is right, it’s perfect.”

Matlock spun his way to a sixth-place finish at nationals last year with a throw of 181-5. It came after a series of personal bests that peaked at 192-4 in the Last Chance Meet at Willamette in May.

“I don’t know what happened, but I went way up real fast,” he said. “It was a good time to peak.”

With the main season starting this weekend, Matlock has already thrown in the 180s in practice. He’d like to throw 200 feet.

“It has to be dry and sunny, and I have to be relaxed,” he said. “I throw a lot better when I’m relaxed rather than tight and tense, when I have good technique and let ’er rip.”

Matt McGuirk, Willamette track coach, said Matlock’s technique was been the biggest reason for his improvement in the hammer.

“He controlled his speed and he got his timing down,” McGuirk said. Sorensen thinks Matlock can qualify for nationals in the discus because of his technique.

“He’s possibly the most explosive I’ve ever coached,” Sorensen said. “He has good feet. I haven’t had to change much of his technique. He’s heavier than last year which allows him to do more.”

Matlock believes he needs to improve from his current conference discus best of 152-11 to at least 160 to make nationals.

“It’s the most challenging because you have to do everything perfect,” he said.

Matlock was the NWC champion in the shot put in 2002 and 2003, but showed signs of throwing more than 50 feet with a conference-best 49-10 on March 18.

Matlock’s presence at nationals would be one of many possible entries for Willamette, which tied for third last year.

But he’s still not convinced his football days are finished. Defensive line coach Tanner Smith has sent tapes of Matlock to some teams in the Canadian Football League.

Another option for the math major is graduate school, where he has been accepted to Boise State in his hometown.

In the meantime, he plans to enjoy his final spring at Willamette spinning in the hammer ring.

“It’s the most fun because it’s like you’re going through a ride spinning around,” he said. “And screaming.”

This story was written by Reid English for the Statesman Journal and appeared on March 30, 2005.

© 2005, The Statesman Journal. Reprinted with permission.