Paris is the point: For Prospect graduate Reese, extra effort paid off in pivotal text message

So dramatic, the gyrations Prospect High School graduate Erin Reese performed to make her first United States Olympic women’s track and field team.

For a hammer thrower that’s saying something.

Following her third-place finish in the hammer at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials on June 23 in Eugene, Oregon, Reese was in limbo nearly two weeks until she received a text message of congratulations for making Team USA while at work on July 5.

She works with children who have mental health challenges at a behavioral health facility near her home in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was helping a child at just that moment.

“It just popped up on my phone and I had to keep my composure because I was in the middle of my work day,” said Reese, who won the 2014 Class 3A discus title as a senior at Prospect, where she holds program shot put and discus records. Reese also owns outdoor hammer and shot put program records at both Indiana State and Dayton universities. She placed fourth at the 2021 U.S. Team Trials.

“It has been crazy,” she said Saturday. “I think the hardest part was just not knowing.”

The top three event finishers at the Trials were eligible to join Team USA for the 2024 Paris Olympics — if they had attained an Olympic qualifying standard over the prior calendar year or reached it at the Trials.

If not, it was up to World Athletics rankings and Team USA decision makers as to, in this specific case, which if any woman would join Trials hammer throw winner Annette Echikunwoke and runner-up DeAnna Price, a two-time Olympian.

Reese, whose third-place throw went 71.21 meters, or 233 feet, 7 inches, had not reached the qualifying standard of 74 meters, about 242 feet, 9 inches.

“When a bunch of people didn’t throw what they were supposed to and the third ended up being 71 (meters), I immediately started to panic because my world rank was not high enough,” she said.

She recalls being around No. 37 on World Athletics’ “Road to Paris” worldwide rankings system of performances between July 1, 2023, and this June 30.

Reese needed to be in the top 32. She and coach Brandan Bettenhausen, whom Reese has worked with since competing at Indiana State, didn’t listen to those who said she was “pretty close” and “probably in.”

“I was like, I’m not leaving that up to chance,” Reese said. “If we can get another meet in, I’m going to try, go all out and get in.”

She had until June 30 to improve her lot. She and Bettenhausen remained in Oregon, training, should they find the right opportunity.

Through the thrower’s grapevine Reese heard of a World Athletics-sanctioned meet in Kelowna, British Columbia — the Jack Brow British Columbia Masters Championships.

Reese started a GoFundMe account to raise travel expenses. A flight got canceled at the last minute due to striking Canadian airlines employees. They booked another flight to Vancouver and drove four hours to get to the meet.

Finally, once in Apple Bowl Stadium, in her last chance on June 30, Reese’s farthest throw soared a season-best 72.10 meters, about 236 feet, 6 inches.

Not the standard, but a crucial improvement that, as of Tuesday, had her tied for 29th on the World Athletics rankings used for qualification.

And, after days of “insane” emotions, the congratulatory text on July 5.

“It was so nonchalant,” Reese said. “It was like, ‘Congrats on being named to the 2024 Paris Olympics Team,’” with a request for an address to send her Team USA Olympic competitive and Opening Ceremonies uniforms.

Maybe glossed over in all this was that Reese was in sixth place after the first day of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials and rose from fifth to third place on her last throw in the finals.

Throughout her ordeal, and her progression as an athlete, she’s been supported by friends and family, including her husband of 10 months, fellow former Indiana State thrower Joseph Barnes.

Reese has regularly received help and encouragement from Prospect girls track coach Pete Wintermute, from Knights throws coaches Nick Lussow and Tim Beishir.

Also from retired Prospect girls coach David Wurster, who saw Reese in the school weight room and convinced her, begrudgingly since she hated running, to try track and field, to throw the heavy metal.

“I didn’t have dreams of being an Olympian growing up. That’s not something I really ever considered for myself, because I was not very athletic. I really struggled in other sports and it just so happened that throwing was something I was good at,” Reese said.

“And so, the Olympics never even crossed my mind. So I can’t sit here and be like, this is one of the things that I ever thought of being, because it’s not.

“But since I started throwing in college, this is something that I was like, ‘Maybe one day.’”