Samantha Heyison was born to be an athlete.

Her mom, Tonya, played college volleyball at Maryland-Baltimore County, while her dad, Marc, played two years of minor league baseball after being a ninth-round pick by the Baltimore Orioles in 1983.

Like most kids of her generation, Heyison tried soccer, but that wasn’t her thing. As a 6-year-old, she was introduced to track and tried various running events.

“But I wasn’t very fast,” Heyison said.

One thing she did have at that early age was strength, so she tried the throwing events. That move paved a path for the rest of her athletic career.

At the 2023 Para track and field world championships in Paris, Heyison made herself known on the international stage by winning bronze medals in the women’s discus and shot put in the F64 class.

Now, the 19-year-old from Adamstown, Maryland, is aiming for her first Paralympic berth at this summer’s Paris Games.

So, what drew Heyison to the two throwing events?

“They’re so much fun,” Heyison said. “I mean, a heavy ball and a heavy disc and you get to see how far it goes. That just sounds great to me.”

While she also dabbled in basketball and softball at Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Maryland, Heyison focused on track. As a left-handed thrower, due to constriction band syndrome that affects her ability to grip with her right hand, she won two 4A state titles in the discus and one in the shot put.

Now a college freshman at Wake Forest, Heyison is redshirting this season to focus on making the Paralympic Games Paris 2024, which kick off on Aug. 28. That effort began in earnest in March at the U.S. Paralympics Track & Field National Championships in Walnut, California.

Heyison, competing in the F44 division, won the discus event with a throw of 34.63 meters, while her throw of 10.38 meters in the shot put was good for second place. Those marks were not enough to earn her one of the 30 spots on the slimmed-down U.S. team that competed at the world championships in Paris.

Heyison is now aiming to ramp up her performance for the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Track & Field set for July 18-20 in Miramar, Florida.

While her coaches at Wake Forest help her refine her technique, Heyison is also working on the mental part of her game. Having already won state titles and world championships medals, Heyison sets high expectations for herself whenever she competes. One way for her to combat that pressure is learning how to relax.

“I think most people perform the best when they try to relax as much as they can,” she said. “I try to do that. I have my superstitions that I go through, listening to the same music all the time and I just try to get into my happy place.”

That happy place includes a variety of rap songs, but there is always one specific jam she plays to finish her routine before stepping into the circle: “Eye of the Tiger,” the Survivor song that became a hit from the movie “Rocky III.”

“I got into it because of my dad,” Heyison said. “My dad used to play professional baseball and that was his go-to song as well. It just kind of stuck with me through him.”

Her parents’ athletic backgrounds have instilled a keen sense of putting in the effort to see the results.

“I think the environment I grew up in — I have a very hardworking family on both sides — and I think just watching them as I grew up has been how I get my work ethic,” Heyison said.

Now with high-level coaching at Wake Forest, Heyison can combine that work ethic with a better process.

She practices with one of her coaches for a couple of hours “almost every day,” Heyison said, where they focus on breaking old habits and refining her technique. She’s also hitting the weight room three times a week during the season, and four times a week in the offseason.

That combination is slowly paying dividends as her body adjusts to the added strength and improved technique.

“Your body kind of has to adapt to that because you’re just growing every day naturally,” Heyison said.

The two bronze medals Heyison won at her worlds debut in 2023 gave her the confidence of knowing she belongs in that elite company. Now she just wants to build on that experience during a summer of strong competition.

“It told me that I’m capable,” Heyison said of her worlds performance. “I do get very down on myself, as I’m sure a lot of athletes do. But I feel like me, especially, it gets to a really bad point. So I look back at those and I just know it’s a reminder that I know what I’m capable of doing. I know I’m capable of more and it just helps me to keep pushing myself every day to do the best I can.”

Steve Drumwright is a journalist based in Murrieta, California. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Samantha Heyison’s Parents Blessed Her With Athleticism … And A Pump-up Song

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