University of Georgia Athletics
Miller Trying To Find His Mark
April 22, 2016 | Track & Field
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Ashinia Miller has won five of the past nine shot put events he's entered, including winning the SEC Indoor Championships in February. The Georgia senior also has a pair of second-place finishes in that span, which stretches back to early December.
Other than a disappointing NCAA Indoor Championships, when the senior from Jamaica fouled out, the big and powerful Miller is enjoying the best prolonged stretch of his career. But a couple of things, including one big, BIG thing, are missing.
First, Miller's personal-best throw is 66 feet, 7.75 inches, came more than a year ago, so his in-meet progress isn't where he wants it. Second, and this is that BIG one, Miller is still chasing the mark he needs to hit to have a shot at the Summer Olympics in Rio.
"Outside competition, I'm way better, like a meter better than last year," said Miller, who is competing Saturday night at the Virginia Challenge in Charlottesville, Va. "It's just I haven't done it in competition yet."
Miller wants to win meets and SEC and NCAA titles, but he also really, really wants to hit the standard of 20.5 meters (67 feet, 3 inches) and possibly represent Jamaica in the Olympics. Ideally he does the latter while achieving the former, and for that to happen he knows what he has to do: relax and just turn his mind off for a bit.
"It's anxiety, it's anxious, it's me just trying to get that mark," he said. "I tighten up in the middle, not because of the competition and being scared, but I'm just trying to get that standard, that mark, so whenever I'm in competition I just tighten up, you know?"
That's not something every athlete would admit to, but Miller is up front about it. He knows how he performs in practice and warmups and he knows how he performs in meets. Georgia associate head coach Don Babbitt, the Bulldogs' throws coach, knows, too.
Miller's best toss this outdoor season has been 65-1.50, during the Georgia Relays last month. It ranks fourth nationally this season and it's the fourth-best mark in school history, but it's far short of the mark he needs and far short of his best throws in training and in pre-meet warmups. He won the SEC Indoors with a throw of 65-9.75.
Babbitt said Miller's training is "much, much better this year" and he has gone beyond 68 feet in practice. But that's practice.
"He's hit [the qualifying standard] in practice and he's hit that warming up, so he knows he can hit the standard," Babbitt said. "But he's worried about hitting the standard -- it's kind of like if you think about doing something too much you're just going to worry yourself into not doing it. That's one thing we're working on is trying to avoid that."
Babbitt compared Miller's situation to a field-goal kicker that makes 50-yarders in practice all the time, but then gets in a game and over-stresses about making a 25-yarder.
"When you can kick 50- and 60-yarders all day, there shouldn't be anything that you have to worry about," Babbitt said. "Just go in with a clear head and nail it."
And that's what the next few months are about, nailing it. Miller's technique can still be perfected, of course, but he has the talent and he's put in the work in the gym, putting on about 40 pounds in his time at Georgia (he's now 6-foot-3 and around 280 pounds).
Miller knows how he performs at his best, because he's done it before. When he set his personal best, at the 2015 McCray Memorial in Lexington, Ky., he wasn't thinking about hitting a distance, he was thinking about beating the guys around him and winning a meet.
"That was one of the few meets since I've been here that I was just went there to compete," he said. "I didn't care about any distance, I didn't care about anything, I just went there to compete and I ended up throwing 20.31 [meters]. That was almost 70 centimeters better than my practice P.R.
"I just need to learn to just go there and compete, because when we're competing I always get the ball going. It goes when I compete, but when I start thinking about distance or a mark, I just get tight, get tied up. I need to convince myself to stop chasing the mark."
It would seem it's the free and easy throws that go far, not the ones weighted down with hopes and dreams. Separating the throw from what a great result could bring surely isn't an easy riddle to solve, but Miller's working on it.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
