Fittingly, Foluso Akinradewo carries around a CD player and a pair of those fat headphones. You know the type. The ear-swallowing headphones. The ones that feel like a stereo on your head.
See, Akinradewo competes in the triple jump for the Oregon men’s track and field squad. And the triple jump, it seems, is all about rhythm.
“It’s kind of like dancing,” Akinradewo said. “If you don’t have coordination and rhythm, you can’t triple jump. Some people can’t control their speed in the triple jump, and then you can’t do it. You have to have that rhythm, you have to control that speed.”
Akinradewo’s got the beat. That’s partly why the senior from Fresno, Calif., was able to finish second last season in the triple jump at the Pac-10 Championships. Second only to USC’s Julien Kapek, who finished third at the national meet.
But the key number in that sentence, in relation to Akinradewo, is “second.” This year, Akinradewo’s trying to dance all the way to the top.
“I’ve been making steady progress, but I’m hoping I can just blow up this year,” Akinradewo said. “I was happy with second place in Pac-10s, but I didn’t get to nationals, so that’s what I need to do, start chasing some national marks.”
To get what he wants, he will have to improve on his personal best of 50 feet, 10 3/4 inches. Sure, Akinradewo is good enough to sit 10th all-time on the Oregon list, but Kapek jumped 55-3 at Pac-10s last year, and with the top Trojan back this season, Akinradewo knows he needs to get better.
Sort of like he’s gotten better every season since stepping on the Oregon campus.
Akinradewo jumped right into — pun intended — his Duck career four years ago. He had a successful start to his first season, jumping 50 feet in winter indoor action and winning four competitions during the outdoor season. But the pressures of big-time college track eventually caught up with him, and he went flat like a day-old soda at the end of the year.
“In high school, you’re doing everything else, you start training for track in January, some places even February,” Akinradewo said. “Here you start in September, October. It’s just a year-round thing. You’re not used to it.”
But he still finished seventh at Pac-10s that season. The next year, Akinradewo was the only true triple or long jumper on the team, and he struggled to stay motivated without the presence of a practice mate. He again finished seventh at Pac-10s, but his conference mark dropped by almost a foot.
Then, last season, Akinradewo received a little angel in the form of freshman Derek Strubel, a fellow triple jumper. The two pushed each other in the weight room and on the track, and the result was a happier Akinradewo — a second-place-at-Pac-10s Akinradewo.
“When I got here, Akinradewo was really good to me, kind of took me under his wing, showed me the system,” Strubel said. “He pulls me along, too, he knows a lot about the event.”
The event is an oddity. Part timing, part hops, part strength — and of course, all rhythm — the triple jump is one of the forgotten events in track as people focus on the more explosive long jump. But triple jumpers score points at team meets, too, and Akinradewo will be the top-ranked triple jumper at Saturday’s Pepsi Team Invitational, where Oregon will go head-to-head-to-head with Minnesota, Colorado and Washington. Strubel is ranked fourth among Saturday’s entries.
“I love it,” Strubel said of the triple. “It takes a lot of skill to control your body. It’s one of the more finesse events.”
Akinradewo said he’ll try to finesse his way through this weekend’s meet. He said he’s taking a different approach to the season, a “fun” approach. But don’t confuse “fun” with “lazy.” It just means he’s not too worried about his competition.
“Some people on our team scout the competition ahead of time,” Akinradewo said. “I don’t even want to know who’s coming. I have a mark in my mind that I want to shoot for.”
So don’t be surprised if you see Akinradewo on campus this week, headphones on, blaring music only he can hear.
He’s just trying to get the rhythm.