Written By: Sophia Caruso, Staff Writer
SHOT-PUT: O’Hara’s passion is to help students feel comfortable in order to participate in Shot put.
Lawrence Tyler O’Hara is a relatively new coach and substitute teacher here at Poly. Many students may remember having him as a substitute teacher every once and awhile, describing him as always cheerful and happy. Recently, O’Hara has gladfully taken the position of being one of the Track coaches at Poly, more specifically the Shot Put coach. This is a full circle moment, considering O’Hara graduated from Poly highschool in 2014, and is now a staff member here.
Last year, O’Hara was a student teacher working alongside another Poly High School staff member, Coach Schlesener. Schlesener is a physical education teacher currently, but when O’Hara was a student here, Schlesener was also the weightlifting and football coach, which had a big effect on O’Hara. Schlesener “did such a good job at explaining technique to me, helping me get more engaged.” O’Hara even goes as far as saying that Schlesener was a “mentor” in his life and is glad that he can now work with him
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O’Hara feels that after high school, it was challenging to find a coach that he felt really cared about him and his success. Even though some of these coaches were reputable, he did not feel that they had a diverse way of coaching, and did not seem to recognize how different body types would have to be trained differently. He said that most coaches tried to have him train the way that they trained everyone, not taking into account size and mobility differences. Since experiencing this throughout college, he now tries to “find what works best for you…there are individual differences.” Because of these hardships and his struggle to find a new coach, he now goes above and beyond and is always finding ways to improve his teaching style and gain more knowledge to “do what’s best for the kids.”
In the past few years, Poly’s shot put team has had around five to ten students, but with O’Hara being the Shot Put coach this year, there has been “over 20 kids…reaching 30 kids, trying to do the throws this year. It is O’Hara’s goal to help any student that wishes to do shot put, and he wants to create a safe space where everyone can try “the throws” with no judgment, and all encouragement.
Although O’Hara is only twenty seven years old, he gives a refreshing view on coaching and always strives to better himself and include as many people as possible. He also stated that it is his intention to open a weightlifting club at Poly, if you are interested you can find Coach O’Hara up on the track after school.