SEAN MCGRATH
Sports Editor
“Savage.”
When you walk into the 312 suite of Grissom Hall, you never know what to expect. With “grapes” being called in the common room, random pieces of cardboard tacked to the wall with “no hole here” written in black sharpie to jokingly cover a non-existing hol e or just the random naked suitemate running around the hallway, suite 312 is always a savage place to be.
But at other times, this is a term to describe one person in particular — freshman jumper Rocky Caparro.
Hailing from New York City, Staten Island to be exact, the newly turned 19 year old has found his niche in the Fredonia State Track and Field team; and he is already starting to excel. He competes in both the high jump and triple jump, but it’s the latter that he is closing in on breaking.
Since 1988, a triple jump record has stood in place. Former Blue Devil track and field athlete Derrick Dorsey set the length at 48’7.25”, but if Caparro has his way, his own name will take the place of Dorsey’s for all to see.
By the time he is a senior Caparro will try to break the record either just under or 30 years after the record was set.
Since the SUNYAC indoor season has started, Caparro has recorded a personal record, or “PR’d,” three times already this season.
“Being from the inner city, I have that ‘bad guy’ attitude,” Caparro said.
Chasing after a triple jump record of 48’7.25” in his freshman year is tough, but Caparro is showing that age isn’t just a number, and he is determined to get as close as possible in as little time as possible.
In his first indoor meet this season in Kent, Ohio, Caparro recorded 43’ 7.25,” just five feet from the record. He eclipsed that number over a month later, when he recorded 44’ 5.75” in a winter break meet at RIT. Both distances were personal records of the one right before.
The next week, Fredonia travelled up to Brockport. In this meet, Caparro thought “eh, why not?” and PR’d — again.
In Brockport, Caparro jumped for 45’.55” and further decreased the deficit between the record books and himself.
So in the end, it’s about how far deep he is digging and what it will take for him to reach his goal.
“I’ve got another five feet to go,” Caparro plainly stated. He knows what he needs to do: just jump five more feet.
But it’s his personality while he isn’t competing that really drives home what Caparro is about.
“He’s really focused on track. It’s his sole purpose,” said Olivia Kurbs, Caparro’s girlfriend and teammate. “He walks into the fieldhouse, and that’s all that he has on his mind.”
And it shows, as chasing such a lofty goal takes incredible amounts of drive and determination, the same drive it takes to correct a whole phase of his jump completely, something Caparro didn’t initially find until after he arrived in Fredonia. It’s not an easy task at times, but it’s obviously working. So, Caparro and his coach have set to work.
“Issues with the second phase is probably the biggest issue with the triple jump,” Caparro’s coach Justin McQuality, known as “Q,” said. “We have problems with it from grade school level all the way up to our professional triple jumpers. The big thing with Rocky wasn’t the fact that he wasn’t capable of having a good second phase, it was really more him not putting his body in a position of executing a good second phase.”
So they tweaked him a bit, focusing on how he came off of his first phase. Learning to separate his feet from the get go and allowing himself to add a bit of momentum for when he needs to jump into his second was the key to his success. Out of his jump, he placed his feet underneath, which was the issue that caused his collapse and, therefore, hindered his progress.
“Now that I have Coach Q, he is definitely guiding me in the right direction,” Caparro said. “He’s showing me what to do. Everything is falling into place at the right time and I’m just knocking the pins down. All I have to do, honestly, is keep my head focused and keep working hard.”
Caparro couldn’t be anything less than ecstatic of where he is.
“He’s a savage on the triple jump; he’s a savage on the runway,” Chase Towse, Caparro’s roommate and teammate said. “I mean, he just works hard. Like I said, he is a savage, and he has a lot of technique.”
Another term that floats around is the term “elevate,” a term that decorates Caparro’s Twitter page, his Facebook and basically anywhere he can seem to pencil it down.
“It’s a term that relates to all triple jumpers, the high jumpers and basically all of track nation,” Caparro said. “It was founded by Will Claye, a triple jumper for the U.S. National team, who is one of my idols. It’s just striving, rising above to achieve greatness and just the foundation behind it, going out and giving inner city people the chance to have extracurricular track programs. Just the meaning behind it, to do good by yourself and do good for others, is why I love it.”
While he hasn’t PR’d in his high jump yet this season, Caparro did manage to qualify for the SUNYAC in his first jump this season, jumping for 6’.75”.
In the long term, Caparro would love to see Dorsey’s name knocked off the board, with hopes to put his own name up there.
Short term, however, “I originally had 45 feet, and I broke that,” Caparro said. “I sat down with Q and we came up with a new goal. So, by the end of my indoor season I want to break 14 meters (46 feet), and by the end of the year I want to finish in the top thirty and earn a 3.3 GPA for All-Academic Honors.”
Currently, Caparro stands at 25th in the nation, so only time will tell where he lands.