Feature Athlete: Colton Root
Rob Steiner
MesaCC Legend
Colton Root, a sophomore, is a thrower for the Mesa Community College (MCC) Track and field team who has overcome challenges in his life.
A track and field athletes have a singular task to always improve their personal best by honing their skills and gain every advantage available. For some, the work they put into their track career may be the most difficult grind of their life. But others use sports as a release to motivate them to rise above other difficulties in life.
Root has been a thrower since his older brothers throwing coach spent some time with him during the summer before his freshman year of high school.
He continued to throw year-round through his freshman year of college at MCC until he left to serve a two-year mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Utah.
“It was nice to come into my sophomore year older and more disciplined but it was hard without the strength,” said Root about being away for two years from the sport.
Root is just now caught up to his throwing distances he was at before he left for his mission.
Away from the from being a track athlete Root has had to deal with a common learning disability known as dyslexia.
“I’m profoundly dyslexic, school was always pretty tough for me,” said Root.
According to Understood.org Dyslexia is described as “a specific learning disability in reading. Kids with dyslexia have trouble reading accurately and fluently. They may also have trouble with reading comprehension, spelling and writing.”
To try and make a change and help other like himself Root is studying education in hopes that he will become a principle and help others to overcome their own learning disabilities.
“I definitely saw the difference of what a good principle can help change in a school program to help people like me learn,” he said “I just wanted a way that I could help a lot of kids who learn like me.”
When root was first diagnosed by a specialist with dyslexia it was so profound it brought the specialist to deliver the news to Roots mother in tears claiming he had never seen a patient so bad.
Through tutoring Root has been able to overcome his dyslexia.
“I had to totally retrain my brain on how to process something correctly,” said Root.
He has hopes to continue throwing past MCC but currently has no offers to do so yet. He figures if an offer doesn’t come he will find a program he can throw for as a walk-on.
His ideal location to further his throwing career would be at Montana Sate since that is where his brother was a thrower and he has family there.
Go support Colton and the rest of the Track and Field team as they are in their outdoor track season.
