Courtesy of Sacramento Bee
By Paul Gutierrez
LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Remember that shy, timid little girl from Franklin High School? The one whose biggest worry two years ago was whether she could keep the balloons from the celebration commemorating her becoming the school's first female athlete to sign a national letter of intent? She's gone. Long gone.
The new-and-improved Nicole McClure not only has expressed herself by adding a little artwork to her right ankle -- a rosary tattoo in tribute to her late great-grandmother Lillian Tonis -- and piercing her nose, the New Mexico State sophomore track and field throws specialist's confidence grows with every toss. Not that she's full of herself thinking she's the biggest thing in Las Cruces this side of the Organ Mountains that surround this slice of southern New Mexico.
Far from it. She's still that same cordial student-athlete who was in search of herself when she chose to cross state lines to go to school and face the culture shock.
"I was sheltered to the world until I got to college," McClure said. "It took a year and a half to get over the homesickness.
"I think now I'm more well-rounded. It might be because of all the travel I've done (with the team). Before, I didn't travel to compete much, and you saw the same girls at every meet. Now, we travel pretty much every weekend and see different girls at every meet."
And McClure is making her mark with the Aggies while making sure competitors take notice of her. In the Western Athletic Conference indoor championships Feb. 23-24, in Boise, Idaho, McClure set a personal record in the weight toss and placed sixth, throwing the 20-pound weight 56 feet, 10 3/4 inches. It was the second-longest such throw in New Mexico State history. McClure's previous best in the weight toss was 53-9 3/4 in the Sooner Invitational on Feb. 17.
In the WAC indoors, she fouled on her first two attempts -- being called for walking out of the side of the ring rather than the back of it on her first throw -- but after qualifying for the final on her third attempt, she crushed her previous personal best by more than three feet on her sixth and final throw (as a freshman at indoors, McClure placed 15th with a throw of 50-8).
In the shot put, McClure struggled, placing 17th with a toss of 38-5 on her third and final attempt, 4 1/2 inches shorter than her mark at the meet last season.
McClure's career best in the shot put is a throw of 41-6 1/2 as a freshman. At Franklin, where she was a three-time team MVP, she had a record 39-9 1/2 heave at an outdoor meet.
She admits the pressure of being the first girl at Franklin to earn an athletic scholarship can be daunting.
"I mean, in practice I'm consistently hitting 55 feet (in the weight toss), and then in meets I freak out," said McClure, who was honored with a New Mexico State Academic Athlete award for her 3.2 grade-point average in the fall semester. She is majoring in community health and hopes to get her master's degree in nursing. "There's this nervousness."
Aggies throws coach Richard Ulm said McClure is focusing more lately.
"She had a killer performance at conference, and that's carried over to practice," Ulm said. "She's starting to really turn a corner. I'm kind of excited for her.
"We're working on keeping it simple for her so that she's not thinking about 20 different things when she's in the ring."
McClure credits her recent improvement to maturity and better prioritizing her life. Having a roommate, fellow throws specialist Monica Gomez, from San Jose also has helped as McClure's parents, Sean and Lisa, now live in Sunnyvale, and McClure and Gomez often travel home together.
"I used to bring everything -- school, relationships, issues -- into the ring with me," McClure said. "Now, it's just me and the throw."
With the Aggies' outdoor season beginning Friday in the Willie Williams Invitational in Tucson, Ariz., McClure will add the hammer to her repertoire.
"At the beginning of season, we had to write these fill-in-the-blank questionnaires on our goals for the season," she said. "I said I wanted to hit 60 feet in the weight toss, 60 meters in the hammer throw. Coach just looked at me and said, 'OK, I guess.'
"But he knows it's in me."
Perhaps most importantly, she believes it, too.
Courtesy: New Mexico State University
