SE: Catching up with Donovan Turner of K-State Track & Field

By: Austin Siegel

Donovan Turner spoke with Austin Siegel of K-State Sports Extra about his Men's 60m Hurdles victory at last weekend's K-State Winter Invite. Turner, a Naperville, Illinois native, also set a new personal record in the first meet of his sophomore season.

AS: Coming back to Manhattan this season, what's the biggest difference between where you were at during your freshman season and now coming into your sophomore year?

DT: After my senior year of high school, I was coming off a hamstring strain. It was a Stage 2 strain, so it was almost a complete tear. Starting off my season last year was a little bit rough, because I was not at peak performance and was focused on rehab. It was so-so and not where I really wanted to be. But, I knew that I had to put my head down and get that thing back up to 100%. With our outdoor season getting canceled, that really opened up the opportunity to utilize the summer, kind of recover and get it back. Now it's stronger than where it was.

Going into this meet, I was really excited because I hadn't tested the limits of how fast I could go. It had almost been a full year. I kept an open mind and just ran my race. This year, with COVID going on, I've really just been focused on fixing the small things.

AS: I remember talking to Coach Rovelto back in March when everything was just starting to shut down and he was like "We've got this one guy who's jumping over hurdles in a parking lot in Chicago." When you were back home this summer, how creative did you have to get?

DT: I Rocky Balboa'ed this summer. I had to get very inventive with everything because schools were closing down their tracks back in Chicago. They didn't want kids to get close to one another. It was anything I could get, any kind of hard ground whether that's a parking lot or a blacktop. I tried to utilize everything I could. If I could set up the distance to that first hurdle, I was doing it. No matter if I got to use starting blocks or not. Running the distances, I had to measure everything out. If Coach said "Run eight 200s" I would measure out 200 meters and just run that back and forth.

AS: How tough was it when you were training back home just to stay motivated and be your own coach during those workouts?

DT: I'm not going to lie, running those conditioning workouts is hard when you're doing it individually, because you don't have that person when you get into those last couple of reps and you're really tired. You don't have that person to push you. In that aspect, it was really hard. The nice thing was that I was able to keep in touch with Coach Rovelto over text. I would go over hurdles and send him videos, just asking what I could improve on, what's the good and what's the bad? That really helped a lot.

AS: How did you first hear about K-State going to high school outside of Chicago?

DT: I did a track club in high school called the Aurora Flyers. My coach was like "Hey, this coach, LaMar Garrett wants to talk to you," and I was like "OK." Coach Garrett gave me a call and he asked me to come down to K-State. He said, "We're interested in having you run track," and I was like "OK." So, I came to Manhattan, I saw the campus and it was pretty cool I'm not going to lie. I got the tour and everything. But the thing that really got my attention was the track team. Just the people, the personalities and getting to meet everyone. That was what really solidified my decision to come here. Everybody was so supportive and motivating each other. I was like "Man, that's the kind of atmosphere where I really want to be."

AS: Chicago and those suburbs aren't necessarily a place where a lot of K-State students come from. What it's been like getting out here and breaking some relatively new ground?

DT: It's a different experience. I came out here and it was honestly like starting from scratch and starting a new life. I liked being able to step away from everything that I had done back home and kind of start a new path. That really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

AS: Getting back here for your sophomore year, have you been doing anything differently in practice or is it just about building back from the summer?

DT: It was really about building on top of everything. This year, I had a lot more drive to really succeed. I wasn't happy with where my indoor season ended last year. So, that really motivated me to push myself harder and even further this year. In terms of going into this season, I wanted to start off better than I ended last year. If I was able to do that, and I had this thought before the meet last weekend, that would mean everything that I've done so far has paid off.

I set a new personal best this weekend and I was like "Yeah! Finally!" All that stuff worked, and it just motivated me to push myself even further. I was testing myself every week to see how far I could go - whether that's shuffling quicker, even if I end up hitting the hurdle. Testing my limits, that's what I did every week in practice.

AS: Do you have any favorite ways to cross train and stay in shape?

DT: I kind of tried a little bit of everything. This summer, I picked up jump roping for rhythmic purposes and also for cardio. When I came here at the end of the summer, before we started training, me and my buddy Gabe Louw, we went out to Manhattan West High School and we finished our practice, I think it was like nine 150s, which is enough to get you somewhat tired, and we found these big tires and I was like "Hey, we should flip these." He was like "You're stupid. Let's do it." So, we grabbed the tires, set them up on the football field and we realized these things were heavy. They were big tires. We were like "How far do we want to go?" He said like 20 yards, but I wanted to go the full football field. He said "You're crazy. Let's do it." We flipped these tires all the way, with no brakes. We were absolutely dead after that.

AS: You have teammates like Gabe on the track team who are from all over the world. What's it been like coming back to that K-State family during a year like this one?

DT: With all of our athletes, no matter where they're from, when we came back it just brought us closer together. With COVID going on, we weren't allowed to really see people outside our sport. We could only really interact with one another. I feel like it really solidified the bond between us as teammates. Especially, with the freshman class, because they came into this not knowing what to expect. It forced them to get to know our team a lot more.

AS: So, now that you have that PR to build on after you get back from the holidays, what's your next chapter look like?

DT: Honestly, just to see if I can get that time down even lower. Really fix the small things. I'm not going to lie, the meet went well, but there are a lot of things I can still work on. Because I didn't have a perfect race by any means. My block starts have always been my weakest part of the race, so I'm really keen on getting that up to everything else. I'm going home this weekend and the focus is just going to be on getting creative again. Improvise again. I'm going to be really focused on maintaining my shape, cardio and building more strength.

Kansas State University Athletics

SE: Catching up with Donovan Turner of K-State Track & Field

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Donovan Turner

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