Distractions can't slow down Carr

By Leila Wai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Following the recent scandal at the University of Colorado involving the football program, the media have been waiting around campus, hoping to corner some of the athletes for comments.

Punahou alum Matthew Carr finished seventh in the weight throw at the Big 12 Championships. University of Colorado

"It's been a pain in the butt because reporters have been everywhere," said Carr, a 2000 graduate of Punahou from Honolulu. "Ninety percent of the stuff isn't true."

Carr recently earned all-conference honors for the second year in a row after placing seventh in the weight throw at the Big 12 Championships with a toss of 57 feet, 10.5 inches, on Feb. 27.

His toss is the seventh best in Colorado history and a personal best.

He has improved despite all the distractions around campus created since seven women accused Colorado football players or recruits of rape since 1997, and there have been ongoing investigations by the university into whether sex was used as a recruiting tool with player-hosted visits to strip clubs and the hiring of escorts.

"We have to literally push them out of the way when we go to work out," said Carr of the members of the press who camp out near the athletic facilities.

"It's been like a circus here," he added.

Carr, who has hosted three recruits, said that new rules barring recruits from visiting bars and private parties and putting them under the close supervision of parents and coaches are mostly for the football team.

"They are always strict about what we can and can't do, and that we make sure we don't degrade the university," he said of the track program's recruiting guidelines.

He also volunteers five hours a week, leading Bible study with local high school kids.

Carr said that his participation has "formed me into the way I am today, I'm happy."

It is an especially happy time for the former walk-on who earned a scholarship his junior year after earning all-conference honors in the weight throw.

Earning all-conference honors is a stipulation of earning a scholarship for the Colorado track and field program, something he said he "dedicated my entire life to."

It was a tough learning curve for Carr, who said he was "horrible my freshman year."

He had to learn the weight throw, which is "kind of like the indoor version of the hammer," according to Carr.

The hammer is 16 pounds, and the weight throw is 35 pounds and designed for indoor events.

"The hammer goes about 190 to 200 feet, and if you threw the hammer indoors, it would go out the window," Carr said. "When I first came up here, and my coach put the thing in my hand, I was like, what the heck is this?

"I had never even seen one before I got up here."

But Carr, who also competes in the discuss and the hammer for Colorado, said that he "finally understood when it was zero degrees outside," the importance of changing field events to adapt to an indoor arena.

At 6 feet 1 and 230 pounds, he said he is one of the smaller throwers in the Big 12, but keeps up with the other competitors because of his quickness. He lost 50 pounds after high school, slimming down because he needed to get quicker, but still kept his strength.

He will graduate with a degree in business this summer — and hopes to tour Europe this summer — but keeps his days full with practices, school, Bible study and working at a sorority as a kitchen boy.

"Everything I do, I love with all my heart," he said. "Because I love what I do, it makes everything I do a thousand times easier."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2457.