KENT, Ohio — Some people crumble under the pressure and difficulties of dealing with adversity. For Cleveland native Reggie Jagers, it pushed him extra hard to succeed.
"It's 2 kilograms, around 5 pounds," he says.
That’s the weight of a discus. To most people, it's just something strong people throw in competitions. For the 26-year-old Jagers, it represents so much more.
"You can either be a product of your environment or you can use what's in your environment to help you tap into a deeper self, a stronger self, to make you stronger," he explained.
Jagers grew up in the inner city of Cleveland, and remembers a childhood where nearby shootings were a regular occurrence.
"Around the corner from me, I witnessed drive-bys," he remembered. "Drug houses were next door."
Then he moved to Solon, where as a junior in high school he was introduced to discus throwing, finding the perfect release he was looking for.
"You have a lot of anger, and I would just go at the discus and light it up," he told us. "I kind of just carried that mindset that if you have problems outside of your life, you can be constructive and put it into your sport."
"He just started his junior year, so an athlete being able to throw 160 feet in your first year within a couple weeks, there was no question there was talent there," Nathan Fanger, Reggie's coach at Kent State University, said.
Just starting to throw that late in high school is relatively late for sport, especially for someone looking to be one of the best in the world. There are also the difficulties of being a south paw in a game of righties.
"I'm also left-handed, so there's not many of us," Jagers admitted. "I'll use mirroring apps online to flip my throw to right hand so I can change my perspective."
Just like everything else, Reggie overcame it. Then, when his father passed away in 2019, he used throwing as a way to grieve.
"I think I actually threw 70 meters after my dad passed away," he said. "I kind of used the same aspect of taking your emotions and putting them into the discus. I felt like he was kind of projecting on me."
Now, the Solon and Kent State graduate is taking the world stage to try and throw his way toward his dream of winning a gold medal.
"I've probably thought about me holding that gold medal probably a million times," Jagers said. "That's what helps me when I'm going through tough times in the ring or training."
It's the very dream that helped push him through everything life could throw at him.
"The Olympics is by far the marquee spot, and that would be everything to him," Fanger said.
"I remember the coach at the Olympic training center, he asked me if throwing discus is hard," Jagers recalled. "I thought about my life and what I've been through, and this is probably one of the easiest things I've been through in life."
Jagers first competition in Tokyo is the qualifying round, Thursday night at 8 p.m. eastern time.