Noah Shuster ’19 is a sociology major and record holder on the Colorado College men’s track and field team. After being sidelined with an injury for the 2018 season, Shuster is poised for a comeback. The men’s and women’s track and field team competes in their outdoor season opener in Long Beach, Calif. on Saturday, March 2.
Ben Hall: The season’s getting underway; what are you most excited about for your senior season?
Noah Shuster: I’ll tell you what I’m hopeful for. I’m hopeful to go out with a bang to what’s potentially going to be both my last collegiate track season, and my last competitive track season ever, something I’ve been doing since sixth grade … I’m more motivated than ever to get fast again. Our indoor meets weren’t exactly what I hoped they’d be, and I feel like I might have to work twice as hard as I’ve had to in the past to get to where I want to be — sub-11 seconds in the 100-meter.
BH: You recently made your return to competition; congrats on that. What does it mean to you to be healthy enough to race again after being injured all of last season?
NS: If I ignore the times I’m running, it means so much; it’s so, so good. After the first race, it was a relief. A majority of my season-ending hamstring pulls have been in meets, so after that first meet, I immediately got a surge of confidence. Now that I can go 100 percent, I feel better about my legs than I’ve felt in a long time.
BH: I noticed you were listening to some classical music on Spotify earlier today. Is that a pretty common vibe for you?
NS: Classical music is my study music … that’s really just what the playlist is called though.
BH: Yeah it looked like there’s some Hans Zimmer and that sort of thing in there.
NS: You really did your research. Yeah, it’s a lot of movie soundtracks and what-not; that’s my main study music.
BH: You’re currently working as an intern for the Colorado Springs Gazette. What have you been doing there?
NS: I have a breaking news internship there. I report mostly on fatalities from traffic or crimes, basically a lot of police reporting. I listen to the police scanner and look online for info on accidents and crimes. On Sundays though, I get human interest stories. This weekend, I did a story on the Pikes Peak Pats, the second biggest New England fan club west of the Mississippi. Check it out on gazette.com.
BH: A few years ago, you spent a few months as an assistant teacher for second grade. Your LinkedIn highlights the experiences you had de-escalating playground conflicts. What was the practical application you gained from those experiences?
NS: It confirmed to me that I do not want to get into education, at least at the elementary school level. It was a very high stress environment. They’d put me with this kid Ajani; he was a demon child, and they thought that me, a high school student, could deal with this kid who’s just off the walls.
BH: What’s the best and worst nickname you’ve ever had?
NS: Most of them are not appropriate — you couldn’t publish the worst ones … my friend from track in high school called me Zelda because I have very pointy ears. He didn’t even mean Zelda; he meant Link, but it still stuck. My rap name has been both Big Shu and Lil Shu.
BH: You have some nice ink. What’s the meaning behind your plant tattoos?
NS: One’s a daisy, for my dog Daisy. And the cattails represent my summer camp, which I’ve been either going to or working at every summer since I can remember. This summer was my 14th summer there.
BH: You’re a sociology major and journalism minor. How are you hoping to combine those two interests?
NS: I think just by getting into journalism I’m combining them. The journalism I’m interested in is socially grounded. Check out my last piece on Title IX at CC. I also have another piece coming out soon. I really like journalism; I definitely want to try to be a journalist after graduation.
BH: I hear you have a good Waffle House story.
NS: I am a firm believer that Waffle Houses are pretty ratchet. I didn’t necessarily know that until maybe 2009. My dad’s bar mitzvah present to me was to go on a baseball road trip: New York, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto. We saw two Red Sox games and a few other games. To get to the Midwest from the Baltimore-D.C. area, you have to go through West Virginia. I was really hungry, and we saw a Waffle House, and I really wanted it. There’s no Waffle House in the Northeast, so I didn’t even know what they were. So we went in and there was a bees’ nest inside of the Waffle House. First you notice there were wasps just flying around, and then you notice there was a whole nest. And we stayed there, went to the end of the bar, and I had a chocolate chip waffle, and it was the scariest meal I’ve ever had.