Xavier center Matt Stainbrook gives track a shot
Just when you think you've heard the last of senior Matt Stainbrook's experiences as a Xavier athlete, he drops a discus on you. And a shot put.
Yes, Musketeers fans, it's true. The 6-foot-10 basketball player is now a member of the school's track team.
Although he never participated in a field event before last month, Stainbrook will be among the 40 Xavier athletes competing in the weekend's Big East Track & Field Outdoor Championship at Villanova. There, he'll angle for points as the Musketeers' lone male thrower.
"I like to do different things. I'm a Renaissance man," Stainbrook said with a smile Tuesday at Withrow High School, one of the team's practice spots. "Especially because it keeps me in shape, keeps me busy."
Basketball, though, remains his priority. Stainbrook has hired Pro Partner Sports Management agents Frank Catapano and Adam Godes and will train in Florida or Boston after wrapping up things at Xavier. Because he played so well in the Portsmouth Invitational in April, he has an outside chance of scoring an invite to the NBA Draft Combine.
"If not, then from what I've heard I'll probably get eight to 12 workouts with NBA teams so I'll get a chance to sort of prove myself. And from there it's making a summer league team. If you do that, you give yourself a shot to possibly get invited to a training camp. It's always one step after another," Stainbrook said.
In the meantime, Stainbrook prefers to stay busy, which is why he still drives for Uber four nights a week and packs in weightlifting, basketball open gyms and solo skills sessions. He also has track practice six times a week.
Track coach Ryan Orner said the seeds for Stainbrook's participation started last year when his girlfriend, Anna Ahlrichs, was on the team. Stainbrook spent a lot of time at meets rooting on then-senior Ahlrichs and befriending Xavier's track athletes. He also saw a void he could fill as a male thrower.
"I made it really clear to our team when he first joined that my expectations for him are the same as any athlete. He's got to go to the 6 a.m. lifting. He's got to come to practice every day, put in the work," Orner said.
The other athletes, Orner said, "love Matt" for his willingness to do those very things. Stainbrook even implored assistant coach Bethany Anderson to train him as hard as she trained female throwers Mercedes Oliver and Lexie Gower.
Anderson said she has enjoyed Stainbrook because of his receptiveness to the instruction. Not only did he start from scratch, free from unsafe habits, but Stainbrook also entered the sport in peak physical condition.
Perhaps the biggest risk, then, is whether the foray into field events could yield an injury that jeopardizes his hoops prospects. It's something Stainbrook has evaluated and dismissed.
"If I'm playing in open gym, I have the same chance of having a knee give out," Stainbrook said. "I could maybe see it with a different sport, more contact or something like that, but the fact of the matter is that I control what I'm doing in the sense that no one's going to push me."
Stainbrook has taken his strength (and a particular affinity for shot put) to meets at Ball State, Miami University and Purdue. He recorded personal bests in West Lafayette, Ind., placing fifth in shot put (12.11 meters) and 10th in discus (29.66 meters).
Dissatisfied with those distances, Stainbrook pestered Anderson to hold an impromptu practice after their three-hour drive back from Purdue. She relented.
"He actually threw better than what he competed at that day. That right there showed me he is really ready to go out and compete this weekend," Anderson said.
Stainbrook must finish among the top eight per event to win points in the conference championship, and both are attainable goals. So he'll fold his long frame onto the team bus Wednesday for the eight-hour drive to Pennsylvania – no charter flights for this sport – and give college athletics one last shot (and discus).
"I've gotten better and I've had a lot of fun with it," Stainbrook said.