By Daniel Dunaief
Goal set. Goal accomplished.
Miller Place High School senior and track star Jillian Scully wanted to set a new record in the discus in her final season.
She accomplished her goal this past weekend at the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Games in White Plains, breaking the 33-year old state record by over two feet when she threw the discus 174 feet, 2 inches away.
At the same time, Scully, 18, now owns the furthest throw by a high school girl in the country.
“I read 174, turned around, looked at my friends, said, ‘I broke the state record,’ jumped around a little bit, had our fun, took a couple of pictures, went home and made myself some cupcakes,” said the typically understated Scully.
Scully also won the MVP award for the tournament, which reflects both on her remarkable throw and on her willingness to help tournament officials and other competitors.
Scully helped the referees retrieve the discuses and the shot put, a competition she also won on Friday, for other competitors.
An official told her that “you’re not only a good athlete, you’re a good person. This trophy is for special people like you,” Scully said.
After her record setting throw, Scully learned that NASF Nike wanted to provide her with merchandise and funding to support her when she goes to the sneaker and apparel sponsored event in Oregon.
“I’m very excited” about the support, as it is “my first offer of anything,” she said.
Scully’s father James shed a few tears when his daughter broke the record.
“It was pretty amazing, to be a parent watching it,” he said. “She’s pretty determined to do what she wants to do. She had it in her head.”
Indeed, Scully said his daughter has been itching to break the record for a while.
“We knew it was coming,” said Jillian’s mother Despina “Debbie” Scully. “She was throwing 170 in practice. We were waiting with bated breath.”
Jillian’s mother was so excited for her daughter that the family “couldn’t form sentences. It didn’t really settle in until we got home.”
That night, Scully returned home and baked the confetti cupcakes she had been saving for the day she claimed the state record.
The weekend wasn’t complete without Scully heading to a field and working with another athlete.
The day after the games, a discus thrower from Mount Sinai reached out to Scully to ask if she’d train with him.
She got up at 8 am, throwing with him for over two hours.
“She loves helping people,” her mother said.
A sunny day, some early fouls
Like many other Saturdays when she has competitions, Scully and her family woke up in a hotel on the day of the record-breaking throw and had an early breakfast.
She arrived at the meet early to watch her teammate compete in the pole vault. She then stood by the track and watched the boys’ discus throw.
One of the competitors threw a personal best, which gave Scully the sense that the conditions might be ripe for her and others.
“A bunch of people” had a personal record, said Scully. “People were up and happy.”
It didn’t hurt that the sun, which was hidden behind rain clouds during the previous day’s soggy shot put competition, was out.
She had a feeling Saturday would be the day for her to reach her goal.
In the preliminary rounds, Scully fouled on her first two throws. She walked over to her parents and told them she wasn’t even going to spin in the circle, minimizing the chance that she’d foul. She knew she’d throw far enough to make it to the next round.
Even without a spin, her deliberate throw was 145 feet, which was further than the second place finisher for the day.
In the finals, her clean throw not only put her in the record books for the state, but also has her ranked 81 in the country, including college students and Olympic athletes. This is the first time Scully has cracked the top 100.
After her record, she reached out to several coaches and to her brother Jimmy, who is a police officer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Bill Hiney, Sully’s personal coach, sent her an image of an Olympic medal.
Hiney, the Assistant Track and Field Coach during the winter and spring seasons for Southold High School, attributed the record to the work she’s put in, to her passion and dedication to the sport, and to her athletic frame.
“I’ve been doing this for 36 years,” said Hiney. “Jillian is just on another planet.”
Ready for more
While Scully is pleased that she met one of her goals, she sees room for improvement in her form.
If she has her way, her current record may not stand for 33 days, as she hopes to use her 6 foot, 1 and 3/4 inch height, to reach or exceed 180 feet.
“I could fix some of the things I messed up,” she said about her throwing technique.
Hiney, who watched a video of her performance, said she didn’t drive all the way through the throw.
“Her right hip was prematurely stopped, when she could have continued putting more energy into the throw,” Hiney said. He believes it won’t be long before she sets another record.
Scully, who is committed to attending LSU in the fall, plans to compete in six more meets before she graduates, including counties, states, state qualifiers and nationals.
Still, even as she looks to build on this throw, Scully has learned to savor and enjoy the moment.
“I try to acknowledge the fact that I accomplished a goal before I start setting the next one,” she said. “I have a tendency to jump from one goal to the next, with nothing in the middle.”
Scully’s current and future achievements are a product of consistent hard work and sacrifice.
Practicing on a field she makes sure is clear in the landing zone of onlookers drawn to the sports of discus and shot put, Scully works on her form over and over again, videotaping as many as 80 throws in a day and critiquing her form.
All the work means that she “misses out on a lot of things,” said Debbie Scully, which includes the athletic awards dinner at school, the last day of school, and the senior class trip, to name a few.
“This is her passion and this is what she wants,” her mother said.
