Joseph Brown, Mansfield High School alumni, can now add Olympian to his resume, as he has earned a spot on Team USA in discus.
“It’s a dream come true,” Brown said. “It still hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but I am incredibly honored to have this opportunity to represent our country on the biggest stage!”
Brown told NBC 5 soon after his third-place finish at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, OR, that he has been through a roller coaster of emotions.
“It was a roller coaster of emotions throughout the whole competition. Before that last throw, a million thoughts went through my head. At first, I made peace with the situation and felt like I should be proud of any outcome. That quickly shifted into telling myself I was going to quit the sport if I didn’t make it happen right here, which brought me to my final thoughts of now or never,” Brown said.
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Before that last throw he mentioned, he was in sixth place. That would have been far outside a spot on Team USA. Then he let it fly, with his best throw of the day.
Heading into Trials, he said he had to be mindful of his body.
“My training these last couple weeks leading up to this has been a lot less than my usual training. I set it up so that my body would be more fresh coming into this competition. I brought it down to five days a week, throwing for about 30 minutes a day and lifting weights for about an hour which is about half of my normal amount of training,” Brown said.
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Now that it’s on to the Olympics, he said it’s time to hit training hard again.
“It’s time to jump right back into training! I have enough time for one more good training block, so I’ll hit the weight room hard for a couple weeks then taper off as we get closer to the games. As for throwing practice, my goal is to get more consistent with my technique and get my average distance in a session as well as my minimum distance in a session a little higher. If I can execute those tasks, I think I have a good shot at doing something special,” Brown said.
The road to the Olympics, like many athletes, was not easy. But Brown said that his was even harder considering there were so many people around him who never believed he would be good enough to get even close to the Olympics.
"In 2021, I didn't even get past the prelims [at Trials.] I was dead last. It was bad. I left there even wondering if this was something I wanted to keep doing," Brown said.
“I am currently inactive in real estate. I decided to put everything on pause to train for this. Luckily, after the 2021 trials, my wife agreed to take on all of our financial burdens for this Olympic cycle so that I could focus on training. So, none of this would be possible without her. Our agreement comes to an end after this season though, so now I have to figure out some way to contribute financially. Hopefully, some new opportunities come out of all of this,” Brown said.
He said it was his wife believing in him that helped propel him to 2024 and earning a spot on Team USA.
Even after his time on the world stage, he hopes he leaves something behind.
“My inspiration is my drive to show younger athletes that it doesn’t matter how good you are when you start as long as you dedicate yourself to what you’re doing. I didn’t start out as a young phenom. I never even made it to the state championship meet in high school. I’ve even been asked why I kept going after high school since I was nowhere near the elite group. Now we’re here,” Brown said.
Brown, who lives in Commerce, in Hunt County. He threw discus for Texas A&M-Commerce, highlighted by an NCAA Division II national championship in 2019.
