Track and field may be an individual sport on the weekends, but most athletes have teammates to train with for a particular event.

Sophomore thrower Dan Pribula doesn’t have that luxury. He’s the only thrower on the men’s team that is currently competing for Syracuse. Pribula and SU will compete in the Albany Spring Classic this weekend.

Occasionally Pribula practices with the women’s throwers, but often he spends four hours as a recluse.

‘With class schedules and practice times, it’s kinda’ tough because it’s hard working by yourself,’ he said. ‘You have to push yourself.’

Pribula does some weight lifting and running to warm up for practice, then he spends about an hour throwing. He’ll usually get 35-to-40 throws in before taking an hour off to do some cardio work on the elliptical machines.

He ends his day with an hour at Skytop throwing the hammer. Pribula wishes he had a training partner for those hours, though, to help pass the time. But he does like working with his female counterparts, seeing little difference in the gender gap.

‘It makes it a little easier,’ Pribula said. ‘It’s a little different than other sports. We’re all out there doing the same thing, striving for the same goal, throwing as far as we can.’

He’s done that well so far, placing fourth indoors at the Big East Championships. He’s already qualified for that meet outdoors as well at the ECAC/IC4A Championships and is about a foot away from qualifying for the regional meet. That’s a big accomplishment for a kid who wasn’t anything special his freshman year at aptly-named Strongville High School in Ohio.

Pribula relinquished his first basemen’s mitt for track, but still played four years of football. He steadily progressed with his throwing, culminating in a second-place finish his senior year at the state meet. Meanwhile, as an offensive tackle, he received letters from Division I colleges to play. But he shrugged them off.

‘My heart just wasn’t it,’ he said. ‘Everyone said I would regret it but I still don’t. I just got brought into the (high school) program because I was a big kid.’

Pribula said he was on varsity as a freshman but never played and didn’t know what he was doing in his second year of organized football. He started as a sophomore but wasn’t dominant. He improved just as he did with throwing, but college athletics was something completely different.

Pribula insists athletes have to love a sport to play it in college. He cheers for his friends at SU football games but doesn’t wish he was out on the Carrier Dome field. He opts for a good day in the throwing cage, whether or not someone else is there to push him.

‘He’ll be alright,’ said head coach Andrew Roberts. ‘Part of it is that he doesn’t have any distractions. He doesn’t have to wait for anybody. The downside is that he doesn’t have anybody to feed off of.’

The Orange had the luxury of practicing outside Manley Field House this past week. Pribula threw a red sweatshirt on and ran his laps in solitude. The sprinters approached him in a pack, running in the opposite direction. Pribula said he gets a good ribbing sometimes because he’s the only thrower left at practice. But the jokes are reciprocated; Pribula knows the sprinters can’t throw a shot put very far.

Coach Dave Hegland and the sprinters finished their warmup and stretched in a broken semi-circle. Pribula was on the opposite end of the field, stretching without a partner, without competition and without a distraction; something that’s bothersome at times, but might give Pribula a step in the right direction because of his one-man practices.

‘Track is an individual sport,’ Roberts said. ‘And people don’t become successful in a crowd. They become successful because they separate themselves from the crowd.’

Published on April 13, 2005 at 12:00 pm