Early in his Oregon career, javelin thrower John Stiegeler was on a plane with the rest of the Duck track team, heading for a meet.
The landing was rocky. The team was shaken. But not Stiegeler.
As the team filed out, most of the Ducks gave the pilot the usual nod or “thank you” or “goodbye.” Stiegeler sidled up, put his arm around the pilot and started talking about the landing.
“I just gave him a grade was all,” Stiegeler said. “It was about a 7.5. Maybe an 8.”
Stiegeler is always handing out grades. Grades for airplane landings, grades for other track athletes, grades for Duck placekickers. He’s only months away from completing his master’s degree and officially becoming a teacher, but really, he’s been teaching since he could say “midterm.”
But this last year has turned Stiegeler from teacher to student. On one fateful throw in Texas last April, Stiegeler tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, and his rehabilitation from that injury has been hard and painful. Stiegeler still hasn’t thrown at the distances he did two years ago, and he competes with a brace the size of Antarctica on his left knee.
He insists he’s learned from his injury. He’s learned patience, he’s learned to rebuild himself.
Now, Stiegeler says, he’s strong as an Oak tree. He implores that he can reach his goal of a second NCAA title in June. But he currently sits 23rd on the
national list. He finished third at the Oregon Invitational and won’t compete at Saturday’s Oregon Twilight because he needs the rest.
You wonder if the teacher’s got a trick up his sleeve, a pop quiz for tomorrow’s class.
What will Stiegeler’s final grade be, for himself?
 
Stiegeler stands six feet tall and stocky. He looks like a linebacker.
That’s not a coincidence, because his roots are on the gridiron. He started throwing javelin in high school to strengthen his all-star quarterbacking arm, and his real strength was in his kicking leg.
Even coming out of Coos Bay, home of Steve Prefontaine and a rich track history, Stiegeler ignored his small amount of talent in the javelin and focused on football. He went to Oregon State with the full intent of kicking footballs through goal posts for the rest of his life.
“I went to OSU because there was a good opportunity for me there with Jose Cortez graduating,” Stiegeler said. Cortez went on to kick for the San Francisco 49ers. “Had I not left Oregon State, I would’ve been the No. 1 kicker heading into the fall, although they did have what’s-his-name coming in on scholarship in the fall.”
What’s-his-name was Ryan Cesca, who went on to start and have a successful career at OSU.
Meanwhile, Stiegeler found himself missing track. He missed the easy practices, the long meets, the friendships that develop between athletes who are forced together by boredom.
So he transferred to Oregon to focus on javelin. Before he did, Oregon State football coach Dennis Erickson sat him down and offered some advice.
“Wherever you go, don’t stop kicking,” the famous coach said. “You have something that a lot of people don’t have, which is a God-given, naturally strong leg.”
So Stiegeler took the coach’s advice. He tried walking on to the Oregon team even as he was competing in the javelin the next spring. But the Ducks had another what’s-his-name coming in on scholarship the next fall, and there wasn’t space for Stiegeler. The incoming kicker’s name was Jared Siegel.
“I think he’s done an adequate job,” a grinning Stiegeler said of Siegel. “Slightly more than
adequate, maybe.”
 
Stiegeler soon found the mathematics department at Oregon, and later that love for math turned into a desire to teach the subject in high school.
But as much as Stiegeler touts his love for teaching, one current professor says he might be too smart and too impatient to teach.
“My advice to him would be to go to graduate school in mathematics, and try to do mathematics,” said Prof. Shlomo Libeskind, a math professor who has had Stiegeler in several classes. “I think he could pull it off.”
Fellow javelin thrower Adam Jenkins, too, said he feels scared for Stiegeler’s future pupils.
“I wouldn’t want him to be my math teacher because I know he’d be using a lot of big words,” Jenkins said, smiling. “He’d make a lot of kids stressed out.”
Despite the words of caution, Stiegeler isn’t likely to derail from his track any time soon.
“I love to teach, whether it’s leading a bible study or teaching in the classroom, whatever,” Stiegeler said. “I can’t help it, even if the coaches want me to shut up sometimes.”
 
How good was Stiegeler before the injury? He was the Lakers, rolled into one body, of javelin. He won the NCAA Championship at Hayward Field in 2001, and he might as well have been hosting a tea party. He beat his nearest competitor by more than 13 feet.
He had three throws before tearing his ACL at the Texas Relays last year, and he won the competition despite the injury. His toss of 242 feet, 11 inches remained one of the nation’s best throws all season. It was a sad testament to a fallen hero, and Stiegeler ended up pulling out of the NCAA meet to make room for fellow Duck Nick Bakke at the bottom of the list.
Stiegeler has been rehabilitating his knee since he went down in Texas. He had surgery on the knee, and Oregon’s athletic trainers kept him on a strict rehab program. He threw a javelin for the first time after winter break this year, and didn’t seriously throw it until the Oregon Preview over spring break.
“Competitions have been key for me,” Stiegeler said. “It’s like baking a pie. You can work on all the ingredients, but until you throw it all together, you don’t know how it’s actually going to taste.”
He’s still good. Maybe now he’s more like the Sacramento Kings rolled into one body instead of the Lakers. His best throw is 220 feet, good enough to put him right behind Jenkins on the national list.
And last weekend he lost. He lost an outdoor javelin competition for the first time since April 28, 2001.
“I should’ve thrown an easier throw to win the meet, but I was really trying to get my timing back and so I was forcing some big throws,” Stiegeler said. “But last weekend my timing started coming together. I know I can clean it up a little bit and get some bigger throws.”
Even losing didn’t dent Stiegeler’s resolve.
“Getting the confidence back is big,” he said. “You don’t always know what you can do until you do it. I now know that I can throw 240 feet, no problem. And my body didn’t break in half. I’m happy about that.”
After the collegiate season is done, Stiegeler will focus on making next year’s Olympic squad. He has modest Olympic goals, depending on your definition of modest. He only wants to make the Olympic team in 2004, then medal in the 2008 Olympics.

The injury will force Stiegeler to start training in August rather than September or October, which is what he’s used to. That just means it’ll take longer for Stiegeler to shoot for the stars.
 
Jenkins said Stiegeler is always thinking. Always thinking, always learning and always teaching. Those three qualities could propel him to the same kind of success he had two years ago, success on a national stage that is set once again for the senior from Coos Bay.
He’s always teaching, this teacher turned kicker turned javelin thrower.
After an interview in front of the Bowerman Building on Wednesday, Stiegeler turned to the interviewer.
“I’d give that a 9.5,” he said.
Then Stiegeler, always the thinker, thought about it.
“Well, at least a 9, anyway.”