Boston College Athletics
M. Cross Country's Hamm Has Learned Through Adversity
November 07, 2011 | Men's Track & Field
Nov. 7, 2011
Despite the prodigious start to his cross country career, it took Jordan Hamm four years filled with both triumph and adversity to really fall in love with the sport.
In 10th grade, Hamm was an avid soccer player who was also a distance runner on the track team. When the soccer season ended, his track coach asked him to run in the cross country state championships, and he agreed even though he had never run cross country before.
After finishing first for his team, his future in the sport was sealed.
"Right there it was a no brainer," Hamm said. "I loved soccer but I wasn't going to go to college or get a scholarship for it. That sparked my interest with cross country. But it wasn't until probably last year when cross country really hit me hard. I loved it."
Last year was a special year for the junior runner that solidified his position as a key contributor on the team. He consistently finished among the top five for Boston College, continued to lower his personal records and emerged as one of the team leaders.
But that season almost didn't happen, and that's what makes it even more special.
Freshman year, Hamm said, was a "recipe for disaster." Coming out of high school, he was the number one runner for his cross country and track teams and the athlete of the season for three seasons in a row.
"Going into another school, I was like, this is me. I'm going to run this. Right there, my mentality wasn't right. I thought I could do whatever I wanted and it would work," he explained.
Hamm was the first to admit that he didn't run to his full potential that year. He'd even tell you that the series of poor academic and athletic decisions he made almost cost him everything he had worked so hard to achieve.
While he promised himself he would turn things around during the indoor track and field season, he didn't and things only got worse.
"It was a slap in the face," Hamm said. "I had never been that low."
That was when he decided to get serious. He began training on his own, racking up mileage and even running a 5K and a half-marathon to mentally prepare for his sophomore season. He pushed himself to the limit, training harder and longer than he ever had before, and, when the New England Championships came around in the fall, he was ready.
"That was the first time I had gotten on the starting line in a Boston College uniform again and I just remember being so nervous," Hamm noted. "I had never been that nervous in any race just because I had been thinking about that race for the last six months. So I kind of put the pressure on myself."
All of his nerves were for nothing: Hamm finished second for BC, getting nudged out at the finish line by teammate Louis Serafini.
It was a fitting beginning to his special season and proof that the adversity that he had faced made him a better runner and a person.
"I try not to dwell on it too much but it reflects in my personality," Hamm said."I know I can face challenges and can overcome them. In regards to running, I don't even think twice when there's a challenge in the race. I just go. If the opportunities there, you just take it. I learned a lot from the adversity I faced about myself and what needs to be done."
The lessons he has learned have also translated into this season. Hamm finished first for the Eagles three times this season and recently lowered his personal best time to 24:22.9 at the ACC Championship. He also nearly won the Mayor's Cup Franklin Park 5K with a time of 15:37, finishing just three seconds behind the winner.
He also emerged as one of the team leaders along with team captain and close friend Serafini. Serafini is the vocal leader, always boosting the morale of his teammates with his positive attitude, while Hamm prefers to show his teammates what they need to do on the course just by doing what he has to do.
"We kind of tag team this," Hamm said, with a laugh.
At the same time he has been excelling at cross country, he has been discovering what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
An environmental geoscience major with a minor in secondary education, Hamm went to a conference held by the National Council for Science and the Environment that focused on the role of the oceans and the Polar Regions during winter break last year. Even though his background is in the geological sciences and he enjoys being out in the woods mapping, he hasn't ruled out working in oceanography.
This summer, he worked at the Junior Exploration Camp in Southborough, Mass., at St. Mark's School, where he taught woodworking and Lego engineering. Working with kids from all over the world changed his life and helped him follow through with his secondary education minor.
"This camp turned my life around and my perspective on making the right decisions for others," Hamm explained. "I had never been in a role where I was teaching kids. It's funny but I felt like a parent. So taking on that role made me think of how I want to take care of my friends and my future kids I guess. It gave me more authority."
The perspective he gained while working at the camp, coupled with the lessons he learned by facing so much adversity, has helped make Hamm a better runner. Without these experiences, he says he wouldn't be the person he is today.
"I've taken everything and run with it," he said. "It just makes so much sense because those 20 minutes of pain are just 20 minutes. I learned so much teaching, which is kind of backwards I guess."
Written by Jen Dobias
