By Jonathan Chen

Special to The Maui News

Hallee Mohr wrapped up her collegiate career with the University of Hawai’i Track and Field team by competing at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene Ore. on Monday, June 24.

Representing Hawai’i Athletics on the Olympic Trials stage, Mohr achieved distances of 50.61m and 54.39m to finish 19th out of 24 athletes in the preliminaries. Mohr didn’t make the cut, but she wouldn’t let that dampen her spirit. Mohr intends to return to this stage once again.

“My next goal is four years from now, the next Olympic Trials,” she said.

At the Big West Championships in May, Mohr threw for a personal best and school-record 58.25m to secure her second Big West title. Her throw fell just .25m short of the automatic qualifying standard (58.50m) for the Olympic Trials, but it was still good enough to earn her an invite to the U.S. Olympic Trials.

“Very, very grateful,” Mohr said about her reaction to qualifying for the Olympic Trials. “I was hopeful. It looked like I would get in, but actually hearing the official word that I was getting to go was really exciting. It wasn’t something that I expected to do. It kind of came out of the blue this season that I would qualify.”

In qualifying to compete, Mohr became the first UH track and field athlete to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials in nearly two decades. The last Rainbow Wahine to take part in the Olympic Trials was Amber Kaufman, who qualified in high jump in 2008.

“It was really exciting, especially considering all the adversity that our team has gone through,” Mohr said.

With the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex renovated to accommodate UH football, the track and field team had lost its designated practice space. A new dedicated track and soccer facility is being built next door at the former Cooke Field, but construction has been hampered by delays.

“We haven’t had a track to throw on our own. Our girls have been driving off site and going to another high school to go train. We moved from our previous throwing facility to throwing behind the ROTC building. And it just really wasn’t the ideal environment to flourish and grow. But I think despite all of that, our coaching staff and our team, our girls really just rallied together. So being able to go to such an elite meet, despite all of the adversity, I think really shows how wonderful our program is.”

In spite of those challenges, Mohr made it to her first Olympic Trials following a career-best season in her senior campaign.

“It’s definitely very high stakes. Those track and field athletes at the trials are quite literally the best in the world. It is as competitive in most events as the Olympics, I would say. Because at the Olympics, U.S. athletes are consistently taking those top three positions. Just making the team is a ton of work when you’re competing against the best in the world. So it was really cool for me, as someone who is new to those more elite meets, to get to compete against women that I have looked up to for years.”

“I think you could really tell that people were feeling the pressure. A lot of women, including myself didn’t compete as well as they typically would, definitely underperformed compared to their season’s best or just career best. You could definitely feel the pressure of how bad people want it. How bad people want to go to the Olympics.”

Although her final result didn’t meet her own expectations, Mohr’s time at the Olympic Trials put her career into perspective.

“It made my goals feel a lot more attainable. Those athletes that are the best in the world right now, the majority of them I would say have been training for a lot longer than I have,” she said.

“They bet on themselves and they decided to keep training after they were done with their collegiate careers. [Stanford graduate] Valarie Allman, who finished in first place to qualify for the Olympics, she’s I think 28 or 29 years old. So it really put into perspective for me how long these athletes have been training and investing into their careers as throwers. And I think it just encouraged me that, although I might not be there yet, these athletes weren’t there when they were 21 either. It really encouraged me that there’s time to grow and it made me feel more excited than disappointed.”

The Olympic Trials were held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. In the track and field community, Eugene, Ore. is better known as TrackTown USA.

“Oh my gosh, it was awesome,” Mohr said about competing in Eugene, Ore. “Where I grew up, and throughout my experience in Hawai’i, a lot of the focus is on sports like football, volleyball and basketball. There’s definitely not the same community support and culture around track and it’s not something I’ve experienced. So being in a place like Hayward Field where thousands and thousands of people are there to support track and field, the stands full, I mean just the atmosphere is amazing. I kind of thought of it as Disneyland for track people. It was so awesome.”

The trials weren’t Mohr’s first time competing at Hayward Field. Earlier in the month of June, Mohr represented the Hawai’i at the NCAA Championships for the first time in her collegiate career.

“That was the pipe dream right there. That was something that I’ve been working towards since I was a freshman in college and something that I had in my mind going into my first year of college and as a high school athlete,” Mohr said about competing at the NCAA Championships.

“If I had ended my career on that note, I would have been content with that; to be able to be on that stage, to be an All-American. That was the ultimate thing for me. I was just so grateful for that chance. So then to get to go to the trials after that was just the cherry on top.”

Competing at the NCAA Championships capped off a successful collegiate track and field career for Mohr. As a senior, she set a school discus record on a throw that clinched her second Big West title, finished fifth in the NCAA West Regional to qualify for the NCAA Championships, and finished 11th at the NCAA Championships to become just the 16th athlete in program history to achieve All-America status. She joined Novelle Murray (56.44m), whose 17-year old school record she broke, as the only Rainbow Wahine throwers to surpass 55.00m in discus, and was named All-Academic by both the Big West and MPSF.

“I had a lot of support from coach Sabrina (Mendoza) and coach Tim (Boyce). We have a really unique culture on our team. I never could have imagined building such wonderful relationships with my teammates,” Mohr said.

“When you move to Hawai’i, you’re typically moving really far away from home and it really creates an environment where you grow really close with your teammates. They end up feeling like family. So it was very bittersweet, accomplishing all of those things but having to end my collegiate career because it meant that a lot of those friendships will be moving long distance. I’m very grateful for the family that I built in Hawaii and all the memories I made.”

Mohr planned to conclude her track and field career after graduating from UH in May, but her success this season has given her a new outlook on her throwing career.

“I was completely decided on being finished. I was content with my career and happy to be moving on to the next phase of life. Obviously I have so much love for the sport, but I think mentally, I just didn’t have the belief in myself that it was reasonable to continue training and I didn’t want to waste my time,” she said.

“It just wasn’t something that felt reasonable to me, but going to Nationals and the Olympic Trials, throwing 58.25 this season, it pushed me to believe in myself that I can keep going and that it’s not ridiculous for me to keep training. I’m excited and looking forward to seeing what I can do. But no, I definitely was not going to keep training if you had asked me a month and a half or two months ago.”

With an eye on the next Olympic Trials in four years, Mohr will begin training in an unfamiliar environment.

“I just moved to South Carolina on Sunday. My husband (Justin Mohr) got into Sherman College of Chiropractic here in South Carolina, so I am here with him. I got a job working for a really awesome company, working with special needs children. I have a big girl job now and it’s gonna be a lot different training with a full-time job. I won’t have the support from my University like I did and my coaching staff that were so wonderful, but I am determined to be there (at the trials) again in four years and be much more competitive. I want to take a real shot at qualifying for LA 2028. It’s gonna be another four years of hard work and we’ll see how far we can go.”