Editor’s note: Senior Adam Kuehl won the discus event at the Penn Relays on Friday in Philadelphia. He then flew back to Arizona to win the discus Saturday at the Arizona/Arizona State/NAU Double Dual. At ASU he threw for a season-best 62.53 meters. He also finished second in the shot put with a throw of 18.90m. The Arizona Daily Wildcat caught up with Kuehl to discuss his recent success, chipping his tooth and his favorite Xbox game.
Wildcat: How does it feel to win seven of your past eight meets?
Adam Kuehl: It feels pretty good. It’s been a challenge to just stay focused on what I want to achieve every day and just keep it flowing.
W: Are you upset that you have not hit your personal record yet?
K: The personal record last year came at Mesa, and it was like hurricane winds, great conditions to throw far. Aside from that meet, my personal record with no wind is 60 meters, and so far this year I’ve thrown over 62 meters three times. I’ve thrown consistently much farther this year.
W: How does it feel to be No. 1 in the discus right now?
K: I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been Dandy Dozen No. 1. (Editor’s note: The Dandy Dozen is a ranking of the nation’s top 12 athletes in every NCAA-sponsored event.) To be honest, I really don’t care about it too much because their ranking system is bogus, anyways, it’s just predictions. I look at it once a week, but other than that I just try to stay focused on what I need to do to throw farther.
W: What are your plans for after college?
K: Post-collegiately, I want to work with a few diabetic companies. I want to go to Europe and just be able to train full time without having a job. (And) hopefully get involved with Home Depot’s Olympic athlete program.
W: I know you’re a student-teacher – what specifically do you teach?
K: I’m one of the P.E. teachers at Catalina Magnet High School. They’ve worked real well with me. I wouldn’t see myself fitting better at any other school in Tucson.
W: Do you want to share the story about you chipping your tooth?
K: We’re in the weight room on probably my second week of school and I’m demonstrating to the kids how to do a preacher curl, but their EZ bar didn’t have a bend in the middle. So when I’m showing how to do it – I was kinda nervous – I had the bar faced up instead of facing down. When I brought it up, the bar hit me directly in the mouth, and I think I broke two or three of my teeth.
W: What hurt more, the pain or the embarrassment?
K: The pain wasn’t that bad until I bit down afterwards and heard the crunching of my own teeth in my mouth. Other than the embarrassment, the kids were all worried about me, but I ended up being fine. The kids didn’t really give me any crap for it, but a lot of the athletes here did.
W: Your teammate Shawn Best said you had a funny story about a headphone ear bud on an airplane.
K: I had these new Sony in-ear headphones, and they have a little plastic cover on the end of it. I was watching “”Gladiator”” on my computer. Right when we take off I had the headphones in my ear. Sean Shields asked me a question, and I pulled the headphone out of my ear, but the cover was stuck in my ear. Rather than be patient and try and get some tweezers and try to pull it out, I tried to pull it out with my fingers, which just shoved the ear bud further in there. It was the longest plane ride of my life. The ear bud was on my eardrum. I’m sweating and afraid that I’m going to be deaf in my left ear. So when we land, the trainer used surgical tweezers and pulled it out. It was the biggest ear pop that I ever had in my life. It hurt so bad. I loved the ear buds, so what I ended up doing was getting the same pair and super-gluing the plastic cover to the ear bud so I could shove them as far down into my little ears as I want to without them falling off.
W: What’s your favorite type of music?
K: I love rock and roll. Whether it’s classic rock, hard rock, heavy metal. I love rock and roll.
W: If you were a rock star on the field, who would you be?
K: I need a big dude. I wanna say Angus Young from AC/DC, but he’s a tiny dude. Angus Young is nuts. I’ve always liked James Hetfield from Metallica, Sully Erna, the lead singer from Godsmack, just because he’s a badass. I’d be a culmination of a few of them.
W: If you could be any athlete in the world, who would you be?
K: I’d be Brett Favre, because I love Brett Favre. He’s the best football player of all time. He plays for the best team in the world: the Green Bay Packers.
W: Anything else on the life and times of Adam Kuehl?
K: A lot of people don’t know it, but I’m a computer nerd and a gamer nerd. I love playing video games. I have put myself into debt purchasing a large high-definition television and an Xbox 360. I waited in line for three days to buy a Playstation 3. It was the longest three days of my life. I ended up selling it on eBay to pay off the rest of my 360, and I purchased a laptop.
W: Do you play computer games, too?
K: My freshman year I was indebted to “”Diablo II.””
W: What’s your favorite game now?
K: Without a doubt, “”Gears of War”” for Xbox 360 on a high-definition television is the most amazing game known to man. That is the best game by far.
– interview by Justin Adler
