Erik Whitsitt didn’t need another javelin thrower. The assistant coach for the University of Tennessee track and field team had already filled his roster for the upcoming season.

But when his former Boise State teammate Nate Putnam sent him a video of Concord High School’s Nick Reynolds, Whitsitt’s interest was more than piqued.

Putnam, who graduated from Concord High in 2003, had been the program’s record-holder for the longest throw in javelin … that is until Reynolds broke it this past spring season at the first invitational of the spring schedule at Nashua North with a throw of 183 feet, 6 inches.

“Once I saw the video, I figured I needed to do what I needed to do to make it work,” Whitsitt said. “That’s a lot of raw talent there for sure, especially for a guy that’s picked it up year one. The sky’s the limit.”

Never until this year had Reynolds even imagined himself as a javelin thrower.

He’d already committed to play Division III soccer at Utica College this coming fall and had never even been part of a track and field team. But a fateful bit of encouragement from a friend wound up transforming his athletic path.

Now he’s headed to the University of Tennessee, where he will compete as a javelin thrower at the Division I level against the top athletes in the country.

How’d he pivot from a collegiate soccer career in upstate New York to a collegiate track and field career at an SEC school? Some luck, some skill and lots of support.

“Nate Putnam helped me out a lot, sending him videos of my throws and giving me pointers on what to focus on during practice helped out so much,” Reynolds said. “Being able to use that to my advantage, somebody who has the experience that Nate does and having him right there to watch my videos and tell me what I should work on, I don’t think I would’ve been able to be this successful without it.”

Putnam and Whitsitt both communicated the same message: Throwing a javelin is a natural ability. Reynolds has it.

“Either you have it, or you don’t,” Putnam said. “When you have a kid that comes off of an athletic background like soccer and baseball and can just pick it up and really start hammering on a javelin, that’s a predictor that he’s probably going to be pretty good at it.”

His experience pitching, Reynolds said, is probably one of the key reasons why he experienced success pretty early on. Coupled with watching a lot of YouTube videos and the guidance from Putnam and his high school coach, Hayden Daly, he proceeded to win the event at the NHIAA Meet of Champions and at the New England Interscholastic Outdoor Track and Field Championship before competing in the U20 National Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., the site of the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials.

Now he prepares to walk on at Tennessee, where Whitsitt hinted a future as an Olympian isn’t out of the question.

“There are some kids that have been throwing this from their freshman year of high school or their eighth grade year of middle school that have had club coaching or private coaching in the summertime, and some of them don’t even reach the distance that Nick has thrown,” Whitsitt said. “He’s years ahead of the game.”

In his 18 years of coaching, he’s only ever had one other javelin thrower with as little experience as Reynolds. But that other javelin thrower, Kevin Burr, just wrapped up his freshman season as a Volunteer and was named a Second Team All-American by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

“Nick is every bit as talented as that,” Whitsitt said.

Whitsitt also sees Reynolds as a future leader of the program. When he joined as a coach three years ago, he lost a large group of seniors after that first year. Since then, he’s been rebuilding with a younger cast, one that Reynolds will likely be a key part of.

“Nick has the personality that he’s going to come in and be a potential leader for us,” he said. “I think he’s going to progress to being a team leader and somebody that not just performs individually but helps other kids around him perform as well.

“He’s got a great head on his shoulders for being an 18-year-old kid. The type of maturity that he has, the goals that he’s got in front of him and the things that he wants, you don’t see that from a whole lot of kids his age.”