Confidence Helps West Lead Irish
All-American Marshaun West key jumper for Irish Track.
Jan. 23, 2000
by Dan Bent
He stands where the runway begins, calm and collected. He does not pump
himself up. He does not become excited. He simply knows that he will jump
far. He is All-American Marshaun West.
This confidence has transformed West from an inexperienced freshman
into one of the nation's best jumpers.
"I just learned track my junior year in high school, so my success
is really more of an experience thing," says West. "My freshman year, I
really just started getting my feet wet. I trained and participated in the
meets, and with that I got more confidence and received better marks."
While West has received good marks since his arrival on campus
three years ago, he elevated his performance to a much higher level last
year. With specialties in the long jump and 200-meter dash, West jumped to
four first-place finishes, a school indoor record of 25 feet-6 inches at
the Red Simmons Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a sixth-place finish
at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. He also won all five
indoor 200-meter races in which he participated and came within .05 seconds
of breaking the school indoor record of 21.11.
"One of my goals this year is to get that 200-meter record. I'm
getting a little anxious for that and I'd like to get it out of the way
early in the season so I don't have to worry about it," says West. "I'd
also like to improve all my times and jumps at the BIG EAST Championships,
both indoor and outdoor."
West's performance at last year's outdoor conference meet was so
impressive that he earned the title of 1999 BIG EAST Most Outstanding Track
Performer. He left the meet with a first-place finish in the 200-meter
dash and second in both the long jump and 100-meter dash.
A naturally gifted athlete, West was not only heavily recruited to
run track, but also to play basketball at the Division I level.
"I had a pretty good junior and senior year in basketball," West
says. "I was scoring around 23 points a game my senior year and I started
getting a lot of attention from all the junior colleges and a few D-1
schools like Xavier and Temple."
Despite all the attention from schools on his athletic prowess,
West says the decision of which school to attend was purely academic.
"I did not believe I was college bound coming out of high school.
No one from my family had ever been to college, so when I started getting
calls from all these schools I looked to the name and the academic
reputation of the university. It didn't have anything to do with track,
basketball, polo, whatever - it was all about academics."
Academics certainly have been a central focus for West as he will
graduate this spring with a degree in marketing from the College of
Business Administration and hopes to pursue a career in advertising or
another marketing-related field.
Though West has accomplished great things both on the track and in
the classroom, his success has not made an easier life for him in his
hometown of Sikeston, Mo.
"Things have not been very easy at home," says West. "I live
around gangs and most of the time when I go home I'm approached by someone
who feels I think I'm all that because I go to college. I have to be
careful because someone might get jealous and decide that they don't want
me around anymore. That's the way it is. So, I usually stay at school."
This self-sufficiency, in addition to West's confidence and desire
to excel in everything he pursues led the Notre Dame coaches to tab him a
team captain, in addition senior runner Phil Mishka.
"Marshaun has a great work-ethic, a tremendous competitive spirit
and he is liked by his teammates," says head coach Joe Piane. "Those are
the reasons why we chose him as captain and those are qualities we know
he'll bring to the team."
West approaches his captain's role much the same way he approaches
a jump or a sprint: he just lets his abilities do the talking and leads by
example.
"I'm not the most verbal person; I'm not going to get in
everybody's face or anything like that. But when it's on the line, my
teammates know that I am going to do what I can do, always giving it 110%."
With the BIG EAST Conference meet quickly approaching, West hopes
that this attitude will coax the best from his teammates and allow them to
win the conference championship.
"We lost (the championship) last year by 2.5 points, and I want
this team to win it. I think we have a better team than last year, a
better core, and we definitely have a legitimate shot at winning the BIG
EAST."
If Marshaun West's confidence rubs off on his teammates, expect the
Irish to win that championship with West leading the way.
