Mark Patton: UCSB Track and Field Team Finds a Softball Diamond in the Rough

Cody Fleming shot an email into the air, it fell to earth, he knew not where.

The message from UC Santa Barbara’s track-and-field coach was about a javelin, however, and not the proverbial arrow of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “The Arrow and The Song.”

It landed in the inbox of Malia Benson, a softball player from the University of San Diego. And now Fleming is convinced that she’ll become his next Gaucho star.

“He was basically asking, ‘Let’s take a leap of faith,’” she said.

Benson got a good jump start on Friday. She made her collegiate debut by throwing the javelin 43.55 meters (142 feet, 10 inches) — the fifth longest toss in UCSB women’s track history — at The Beach Invitational at Long Beach State.

It came only five months after her first training session in the event. She soon hopes to be threatening the school record of 48.79 meters set by Melissa Rake in 2016.

“The sky is absolutely the limit for her,” said Fleming, who’s been coaching the Gauchos for the last dozen years.

Limited Recruiting Pool

He’s been forced to think outside the box in the recruitment of javelin throwers.

It’s been a challenge, considering that the California Interscholastic Federation doesn’t sanction the event for state high school competition. Safety concerns have discouraged all but 22 states to allow the javelin throw for high school athletes.

Fleming eventually turned to the sport of softball in his search for a diamond in the rough.

“I went to the transfer portal, narrowing it down to academic schools that were similar to our profile,” he told Noozhawk. “And then I narrowed it down even further to in-state recruits because I thought we’d have a better chance with them.

“I had maybe 10 write me back. Malia was the one who said, ‘Hey, let’s hop onto a phone call.’”

She fit the academic profile as an honors student majoring in psychological and brain science. She also was a multi-sport athlete with one of the strongest throwing arms on the USD softball team.

Benson put her name into the transfer portal last spring after having started for the Toreros as both a centerfielder and second baseman the last two years.

Reigning Big West Conference softball champion Cal State Fullerton gave UCSB its stiffest competition during her recruitment.

But Benson, who had also competed in such sports as gymnastics and track as a girl, became especially intrigued by Fleming’s message.

“When we used to watch the Summer Olympics, everything on TV seemed to be track and gymnastics,” she said. “It was always a thing with me, thinking, ‘Oh my God, maybe I can go to the Olympics one day.’

“That’s not as feasible in the softball world. You have a little bit more of a cap there.”

Benson had set a school record in the triple jump while competing in two spring sports for Riverside Poly High during her freshman season of 2017.

She had never touched a javelin before last year, although she had talked to former schoolmate Evan Vigrass about his conversion into a thrower.

“He’d ended up going to Cal State Bakersfield and throwing the jav,” she said. “I asked him about his transition from community college to a university, and to doing the jav, and he filled me in on it.

“The very next day I got Cody’s message saying, ‘This isn’t going to be your typical recruiting email …’”

When she called Fleming, he asked to a see video of her making long-toss softball throws.

“Within an hour,” he said, “she went out to a field to film herself doing some three-step, crow-hop throws.

“The javelin has a distinct plant where that left leg gets out. She was planting hard with the left and you could tell that her flexibility was next level. Her arm speed just jumped out at you, too.”

Benson quickly became his prime recruiting target.

“We had a long conversation,” she said. “He wanted to take a risk and buy in on me as an athlete, and on my ability to learn, and just my determination, because he knew he was asking a lot out of me.”

All In the Family

Athleticism runs in the family. Her father, Nate Turner, had played wide receiver for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers. Sisters Reilyn and Blake Turner both currently play collegiate soccer.

Reilyn was voted Most Outstanding Offensive Player of this year’s NCAA College Cup. She scored UCLA’s game-winning goal in the semifinal against Alabama and the tying goal with just 16 seconds left in regulation of its overtime victory over North Carolina in the final.

But her grandfather, former baseball pitcher Dennis Benson, was her biggest influence. He got her to think long and hard about the risk of switching sports.

“I live with my grandpa,” she said. “He was the one who got me into softball. He was a very big part of why I played.

“We had invested so much money and years of my life to softball lessons and travel ball so I could play in college.

“I’d finally achieved that — got my ticket punched with a scholarship — and I was really scared that I could be throwing that all away for a dream.”

Benson made her recruiting trip to Cal State Fullerton just three days before her UCSB visit.

“My grandfather was like, ‘Look at the facilities they’ve got at Fullerton … Look at this, look at that … It’s wrapped up bright and shiny in a bow … Let’s take this deal,’” she recalled. “I told him, ‘Let’s just go on this trip to Santa Barbara and see … Let’s talk to him, and if we don’t like it, we’ll say yes to Fullerton.’

“I brought my grandpa up here, and Cody did his talking. He really sold the dream.”

He also had Benson hold a javelin for the first time in her life.

“I picked it up and went, ‘Oh, this seems doable … I think,’” she said..

No Winter Holiday

Some doubt did creep into her mind during the fall training sessions. Developing the preciseness of the event’s technique took more time than she had expected.

Fleming said you have to throw the javelin “through the diameter of a quarter” to get a good result.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not passing 40 meters! I can’t switch sports just to be mediocre at this!’” Benson said. “But I trust Cody and I just let everything click, and now everything has become so much more consistent.

“I stayed here for winter break and I definitely made those weeks work.”

The more Fleming worked with Benson, the more he saw the components of an elite thrower.

“To be good in the javelin, you have to have a good arm, but you also have to have the flexibility of a gymnast,” he said. “You also have to have the ability of a long jumper to come down the runway in rhythm and transfer into a different motion.

“All these elements come into play, and she has them all. It’ll be really fun to see where the sport takes her.”

Fleming had helped develop two-time Olympic javelin thrower Cyrus Hostetler when he was starting out at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

Five of his male Gauchos — Derek Masterson, Thomas Gore-Schreck, Darion Williams, Matt Kuskey and Chase Tarr — have won Big West championships in the javelin.

“Matt Kuskey had been a golfer and football player at Santa Ynez High School before he got here,” Fleming said. “He was 6-foot-2, 220, and so we put a javelin in his hand once he got here.

“He ended up winning the conference championship and advancing to nationals.

“Chase was a baseball and football player, and Thomas Gore-Schreck was a decathlete at UC Davis.”

A Team Effort

Tarr, an NCAA All-American in 2021, is back competing for UCSB as a graduate student. He’s also one of Benson’s biggest mentors.

“He’s the face of the jav program,” she said. “He’s been very important to my success. I’ve literally been learning from him this whole time.

“On the girls’ side, there’s Kendall Martin and Veronika Edison. They’ve been great, too, in helping me do something completely brand new.”

Hope Bender, who won All-America honors for UCSB in both the indoor pentathlon and the outdoor heptathlon, is also grooming Benson as the newest member of the Gaucho coaching staff.

“Being able to pick her brain has been really helpful,” she said.

But the transfer from San Diego has also become the Benson Burner that fires up the Gaucho track-and-field team.

“She’s full throttle with everything she does, and she connects the group,” Fleming said. “She’s the first one to the track every day, and she waits for everybody to show up before she starts to warm up.

“If you’re 30 seconds late, she’ll be kind of the coach for me and get on everyone else.”

Benson, after all, has taken aim at a very high target.