TERRE HAUTE – Erin Reese endures days both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and it has nothing to do with her stature as one of the best throwers in the world.

Reese, 28, an Indiana State psychology graduate, is employed by the Hamilton Center, a not-for-profit regional behavioral health system. She is assigned to Woodrow Wilson Middle School and Terre Haute South High School, with caseloads ranging from 25 to 40 students.

In one instance, an 18-year-old did not know how to count money. Eventually, Reese taught her. The girl graduated from high school, got a job and presented the case manager with a gift.

US Track Olympic Trials start Friday. Here are Indiana athletes to watch.

“She said she counted all the change in her room and bought me a cup to show she could do it,” Reese said. “I cried for weeks.”

Then there was the middle-schooler who was so often in trouble he wasn’t allowed on the basketball team. By eighth grade, he was on the roster.

Or those who, as freshman, fail their classes and are suspended from school. Some graduate from high school and go on to college.

Other teens struggle with ADHD, depression, suicidal thoughts. It is a mental health crisis that has worsened since the pandemic.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most current youth risk behavior survey found 47% of Indiana high school students have felt sad or hopeless for two or more weeks in a row. The same survey found 22% considered suicide.

Then there are family issues, financial stress, food insecurity.

“It’s difficult sometimes not to want to adopt all those kids and take them home with me,” Reese said. “At the same time, I feel I can help their parents and help their families make it on their own.”

She once had difficulty leaving it behind when she went to practice for the hammer throw, in which she has been ranked among the top 10 Americans since 2019. Now, she said, she can compartmentalize enough to leave work at work.

Not that track and field is stress-free.

She has come along in an era when the top women’s hammer throwers are Americans. Track & Field News has ranked three among the world’s top 10 annually since 2019.

Hammer for women wasn’t introduced at a World Championships until 1999 and Olympic Games until 2000.

Friday is the qualifying round in the U.S. Olympic Trials at Eugene, Ore. Entries include two world champions, Brooke Andersen and DeAnna Price, plus last year’s world bronze medalist, Janee' Kassanavoid.

Three qualify for the Paris Olympics.

At the 2021 trials, Reese was fourth in qualifying — less than one foot from third — and finished seventh in the final.

She ranked 17^th in the world in 2023 with a distance of 241 feet. If from any other country, she would have competed for a medal at the World Championships.

At February’s indoor nationals, she won the 20-pound weight with a throw of 84 feet, 5 inches (25.73 meters) — less than one foot from Price’s world record.

“It can be a little discouraging sometimes,” Reese said. “I feel that I’m still growing into it. Hitting 25 meters indoors proved there’s more there. I haven’t touched the ceiling. What keeps me motivated is I just think there’s more.”

***

Like most American throwers, she did not pick up a hammer — an 8-pound,13-ounce metal ball attached to a wire — until college.

She was a state champion in the discus at her high school in Mount Prospect, Ill., and enrolled at University of Dayton. The throws coach, Brandan Bettenhausen, suggested she throw hammer in addition to shot and discus.

“I thought it was terrifying,” Reese said. “He told me he thought I could be pretty good at it.”

The head coach thought it was ridiculous, and said so. Other throwers were adapting faster than Reese, and the throws coach was told he was wasting time on her.

“She ended up throwing far in that practice,” Bettenhausen said. “Just rage throwing, I think.”

Nonetheless, he said, it was Reese’s breakthrough moment. He has witnessed an evolution over nine years together as coach and athlete.

“Once she got that first little light bulb,” he said, “then we started to see that progress.”

Reese won four Atlantic 10 titles, then followed Bettenhausen when he left Dayton for Indiana State. For the Sycamores, she was a five-time champion in the Missouri Valley Conference.

In her senior season, 2019, she finished second in the NCAA behind California’s Camryn Rogers, a Canadian who became world champion in 2023.

Reese takes inspiration from other throwers, such as Croatia’s Sandra Perković Elkasević, who has won two Olympic gold medals in the discus; Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk, a hammer thrower who has three Olympic golds and four world titles, and Price.

The Hamilton Center allows Reese’s schedule to be flexible, and she makes up hours on nights or Sundays. She represents the Velaasa Track Club, which supports aspiring Olympic athletes.

There is training and travel necessary for Reese to perform at a world-class level — in addition to caseloads and volunteer coaching.  She has continued to influence athletes in an Indiana State program that perennially wins MVC championships.

“I think they have a lot of respect for her because they see how hard she works in practice every day,” said Angie Martin, head coach of men’s and women’s teams. “So when she gives them tips, they listen.

“And it’s not just the women. I think that’s a pretty powerful thing for her.”

***

For Reese, change is a constant, and not only because of what she confronts at work.

She was married last October to Joe Barnes, a former Indiana State thrower who was once third in the state in the shot put. He is employed in Terre Haute by Fuson Automotive, competes in powerlifting and coaches high school throwers.

Throwing is the couple’s lifestyle. Reese plans to keep at it through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“I also don’t think I’m ready to give up on track and field,” she said. “I just love it so much. I don’t know exactly who I am without it yet.”

At 5-11, she is tall for a hammer thrower. It has been a process to change from three to four turns in the ring, a way to generate more force. And as evidenced by the near-world record, a force is with her.

She has refined technique, but improvement is not linear. Two years ago, she was “held together with popsicle sticks and duct tape,” Bettenhausen said, because of a hip injury that transmitted pain to her back.

Then last year, she rolled an ankle before the nationals, could not train for a week and ended up sixth. Sixth in the hammer is an achievement these days, but she said she underperformed.

“It’s a mystery to me, honestly,” she said of the hammer. “I feel like I’m learning all the time with that event.”

One change from college that embarrasses her is the sound coming out of that hammer ring.

She grunts. She yells. Many throwers do so regularly, except she never did.

“It’s out of hand now. It’s too loud,” she said, laughing at herself. “I’ve got to figure out how to calm that down. I can feel the eyes. I can tell.”

Home is quieter with her husband and their French bulldog, Tank.

She likes cooking, knitting, painting cartoons, assembling puzzles. Bettenhausen teases her about  “grandma hobbies,” but the thrower said she needs such activities to relax.

“Because my life is so crazy,” she said.

If results at Olympic Trials don’t match goals, she has the skills to cope. After all, she lives that daily with those she counsels.

One teen has taken an interest in her throwing and asks about the meets. Who gets to interact with a national champion or potential Olympian. Cool, right?

“I have bad days,” Reese said. “He thinks it’s cool, and I’m, ‘OK, it’s not so bad.’“

Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: US Track and Field Olympic Trials: Erin Reese eyes hammer throw spot