Bishop Carroll hurdler’s transition to Wichita State track has been ‘truly remarkable’
The hurdles are a track and field event that changes drastically from high school to the collegiate level.
The short hurdles are raised from 39 inches to 42 inches, and the long-hurdle race stretches from 300 meters to 400 meters. It usually takes at least one season for freshmen to adjust, in Wichita State coach Steve Rainbolt’s experience.
Freshman Joseph Holthusen has been the exception.
The Bishop Carroll graduate has actually improved in his first season in college. His personal-best time of 8.04 seconds in the 60 hurdles during indoor season is the eighth-fastest time in WSU history. He’s also already logged a 14.47 time in the 110 hurdles in the first three weeks of outdoor season, which nearly equals his fastest time in high school.
He will be in action with the rest of the Shockers this week at the K.T. Woodman Classic at Cessna Stadium. Most of the Shocker Pre-State Classic will happen Friday, while most of the collegiate portion of the meet will start Saturday afternoon.
“Joseph isn’t super tall, so you had to wonder about the change from 39-inch hurdling to 42-inch hurdling,” Rainbolt said. “To be honest, I didn’t have a lot of confidence that he could make that transition easily, but this guy has made the transition way more beautifully than I could have imagined. It’s a truly remarkable thing, it really is, and I think he’ll get even better.”
Holthusen had the credentials after winning the Class 5A championships in the 110 and 300 hurdles his senior year at Carroll. But he wasn’t sure his times would cut it for WSU and his status with the Shockers was up in the air until late into the summer.
Since he signed, Holthusen said he has bought into the coaching methods of Rainbolt and his staff, notably assistants John Wise and Nikki Larch-Miller.
“These coaches have been here for almost 20 years, so they’ve been doing this for a long time,” Holthusen said. “I trusted the process, I trusted the coaches, I trusted the workouts.”
Ironically, Holthusen’s workouts are the reason Rainbolt was initially hesitant to extend a scholarship offer to him. The coach was left less than impressed after working with Holthusen at a WSU winter camp in 2017.
“I remember thinking, ‘Man, I can’t believe this guy ran that fast as a junior in high school,’” Rainbolt said. “It didn’t look like he would be competing at that level. The whole camp he just looked average.”
Even when Holthusen arrived to WSU and went through Rainbolt’s preseason tests, he graded out in the middle of the pack. That typically does not signify a breakout season is coming.
But something happened every time Holthusen lined up for a race: he got faster.
“You would hope that everybody would have that tendency to bring their ‘A’ game in competition, but I can assure you that it is not the case,” Rainbolt said. “There’s a lot of athletes that you don’t know if they’re going to be a gamer or not. Joseph is definitely a gamer. He’s a guy that thrives in a competitive setting and thrives in a track-meet atmosphere and raises his level. It’s an awesome trait to have.”
Holthusen agreed with the sentiment. He has learned to work harder and smarter in practices with Wichita State, but there’s still something about stepping up to the line and having the pressure of performing that elevates him to another level.
“I guess it’s some other part of my brain that just flips a switch,” Holthusen said. “I’m not sure what it is, but I can definitely tell something clicks and I’m able to race better.”
To put Holthusen’s success in perspective, Rainbolt recalled the career of a hurdler he coached at Nebraska in the early 90s. The hurdler came in with a personal-best of 13.7 seconds in the 110 hurdles in high school but was running in the 14.5 range for the first two years trying to adjust to the 3-inch difference in the hurdles. It took him until his senior year to crack 14 seconds again and return to where he was in high school.
Holthusen, who ran a 14.2 in high school, is already running two-tenths off what he did in high school with up to six meets left in his debut season to improve. His best time of 14.47 in the 110 hurdles is currently the fifth-fastest time in the American Athletic Conference.
“I think about all of my teammates and coaches in the past and currently that have helped me believe that I can if I want to do something,” Holthusen said. “I had a lot of people tell me that this was going to be a hard transition, so the fact that it wasn’t as hard is due to a lot of people in my life who are amazing. I give a lot of credit to those people and I think about those people every day and what a blessing this is to be able to run for Wichita State.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2019 at 7:35 PM with the headline "Bishop Carroll hurdler’s transition to Wichita State track has been ‘truly remarkable’."