Athletic training major plans for future in Colorado

I've often been told there are two main types of people who go disc golfing: the burnouts and the hardcore.

Anyone who's spent time on any disc golf course like Sioux Falls' Tuthill Park knows what I'm talking about here.

On the one hand, you've got your dreadlocked, tie-dye clad hopheads who fairly reek of pot and/or mushrooms.

They roll around the park with one, maybe two, raggedy looking Frisbees and toss them haphazardly at the chain link baskets that mark the holes.

They tape glow sticks to their Frisbees at night so they can watch them spin and flicker amidst the darkness and the fireflies. You know, far out and all.

On the other hand, there are the people who come with their little disc-golf purses that contain every possible type of disc for every possible type of throw.

These are the types that are in it to win it, and while one might ask why they decided to pour their passion into disc golf instead of something more useful (like moving out of their parents' house), they are intense.

They are practiced and precise in their movements and move with surprising athleticism that makes even the nerdiest of them seem graceful.

The interesting thing about disc golf is that either of these two types of people have pretty much the same shot of getting the disc into the basket. I don't know why.

It could be that the burnouts have at last reached a total state of Zen, or it could be that the hardcore players are just heavily sedated by the fog of cannabis smoke that permeates the course.

Senior Drew Markhardt takes his stance—for the record, a sober stance—in the tee box and flicks his disc downrange with more power than most out at Tuthill today.

He's a big guy, an athletic guy, and he throws hard enough to make many of the shirtless bystanders turn their heads to see how close he gets to the basket in his first shot. Then he throws his only other disc just for the hell of it, an encore for the smoky onlookers.

Markhardt is an athletic training student at Augustana and has spent years learning the right way to tape ankles and ice shoulders to keep your favorite Augie athletes in good enough shape to play through your favorite games.

Without people like him, many of the sports teams would fail to properly exist, and players' injuries would turn into serious complications, restricting any chances at championship games or national titles.

He is the silent type who is there on the sidelines, out of the spotlight, but imperative nonetheless.

He spends anywhere from 30-40 hours a week in the athletic training room working on athletes, and nobody cheers for him when he makes a tight wrap or does an exceptionally clean brace. He just does what he needs to do to keep the team functioning smoothly.
After he graduates in May, he'll be moving to Denver to begin working on a master's degree in psychology at Regis University.

During his time there, he'll be working as a graduate assistant athletic trainer.

In addition to his psychology major, he'll do his best to load his own bases by becoming certified as a strength and conditioning specialist, a corrective exercise specialist and performance enhancement specialist.

Even with all of his training and prospects, he—like many seniors I talk to—seems both excited and nervous at the prospect of graduation.

As we make our way through the disc golf course, it seems Markhardt doesn't fit well into either of the two camps of disc golfers. He's steady but laid back. He's mechanical but not rigid. He's not really on one end of the spectrum or the other.

I wouldn't call him a pothead, and I wouldn't call him overzealous.

Drew Markhardt is, well, Drew Markhardt.

Just because he doesn't fit well into the categories doesn't mean he's not as good as the other disc golfers on the course.

But I think that's what makes disc golfing like real life, because there are people who put everything they've got into what they're passionate about and hope for the best.

Then again, there are those who are just f**k-ups who happen to get lucky and score off of chance.

For Markhardt, he has spent years getting ready for his shot, and while his efforts have definitely improved his chances of landing a job, he knows that he's about to toss himself into a world full of chance where the best guy doesn't necessarily come in first.

Until Colorado, he's not worried, because today there is no need to worry.

He does what any of us would do when we're faced with a new challenge—he sets himself up in the next tee box, shifts his weight and hurls his disc as hard as he can toward the next basket.