At the beginning of the 2025 Fair Grove High School track season, Teri Cantwell came to the school to speak and inspire the young student athletes on the track team. During her visit she spoke about adversity, motivation, and advised the track team.
Teri Cantwell is an eight time All-American thrower, two time NCAA champion, 1999 Pan-American games bronze medalist and represented Team USA in 2000 at the Olympics in Shot Put.
Brian Neumann, Fair Grove High School track coach, has known Cantwell for three years and he was the one to reach out to her about speaking to the track team. Neumann explained, “This is such an honor for her to come and speak to our team. She has been to the very top of athletics and has such an amazing story to share that covers so many inspirational aspects.”
Neumann continued, “She has shared so many coaching tips to me in the three years that I have known her and it is truly amazing that she is willing to make the time to come and share with our team. I feel that every athlete should get to hear what she has to say because she has shown what success looks like in both athletics and in life.”
Cantwell spoke to the team about adversity and explained the importance of pulling themselves out and pausing to decide to help yourself. She said, “Emotion is not where you want to be when facing adversity. If you have thoughts, pause and decide is the thought true. If it isn’t true, replace the thought. If the thought is true, is it helpful? If it is not helpful, replace the thought. You are the only one who can pull yourself up out of adversity. Find a plan. Keep your thoughts positive.”
During Cantwell’s visit she focused on her three main life mottos: manifesting, resiliency and trust.
Cantwell said this about manifesting, “Manifesting is believing. If you don’t believe you can, you won’t. The more you believe, say it out loud, write it down, the more you will manifest those thoughts and dreams to come true.”
Cantwell continued about resiliency, “Resiliency-is that adversity… is going to happen. It doesn’t mean you only think positive, you only say move on. You have to address things that happen, what can I do, what solution can I find to get myself a process out of this.”
Cantwell went on to talk about trust and building your inner circle to focus on the positive. She said, “Trust is two fold. Trust the process. Trust the people. To achieve your belief and manifest you have to have process goals. What steps will it take to get to where you want to go? Maybe there will be many processes you have to put in place.”
Cantwell continued, “The higher the dream most likely the longer it will take to get there. Once you have the process in place, trust it…Don’t let the negative fit in your narrative.”
At the end of her visit, the student athletes were asked if they had any questions for Cantwell. One of the main questions asked was, “What advice would you give to us?” Cantwell responded, “My best advice to high school track athletes is to have a plan when going into the competition. Follow that plan. Whatever you decide with your coach on how soon to start warm up, what to do for warm ups, what will you do between attempts and how to think about each rep, attempt or race, stick to it.”
