Opinion

Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2008

Editorial: Poly alum mines gold in Beijing

Stephanie Brown Trafton’s first-place win in the Olympic discus also shows her winning attitude

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Some considered her a long shot to win a medal — one news account described her as “field filler more than a medal contender.” Yet Stephanie Brown Trafton never counted herself out.

Neither did we — we ranked her medal chances as excellent — nor did her many fans in San Luis Obispo County, where the discus thrower spent much of her athletic career.

Last month, Stephanie had this to say about her chances: “I’m in the running for the gold medal,” she told The Tribune. “If I compete well, I really should be in contention. I’m going to try to take it for myself.”

That she did.

Her first throw in final competition of women’s discus was 212 feet and 5 inches. As it turned out, no other woman could match that.

Stephanie chose an excellent time to shine. Not only did her first win at an international meet occur at the Olympics, it also ended a gold medal drought for American track and field athletes at these Beijing Games.

That’s bringing her much deserved national recognition, though her name already was familiar to us here in SLO County, where she enjoyed a career as a standout discus thrower at Arroyo Grande High School and later at Cal Poly.

With her impressive win at the Beijing Games, she becomes Cal Poly’s—and Arroyo Grande High’s — first gold medalist, setting a great example for local aspiring athletes.

Stephanie is no longer a SLO County resident. She now lives in Galt in Sacramento County. No matter. She will forever remain a source of local pride.

Yet as much as we admire Stephanie’s athletic feats, we’re equally impressed by her attitude.

She works hard and is a gracious competitor who makes no excuses for lackluster performances.

Consider her account of the Olympic qualifying round, taken from her blog: “My first throw shows that I am off to a slow start. … I had to wait another 20 minutes to throw my second attempt, and I was even more nervous because I now needed a strong throw to qualify. I had poor technique, and the throw went about 100 feet out.”

That’s refreshing — no drawn-out explanations, just a straight-forward description: “I had poor technique.”

As we now know, she managed to turn things around.

Her third throw in the qualifying round was the proverbial charm, landing her in the finals…and putting her on the road to a first-place finish.

We congratulate Stephanie Brown Trafton, as well as the coaches, trainers and many supporters who assisted her over the years.

Stephanie is a gold-medal athlete — on the field and off.