Dino Nadarevic is an avid fisherman.
He and his dad have fishing spots they like to go to in Turtle Creek and Canonsburg, but it has been some time since the two have broken out the rods and bait.
“I’m planning on going to get my license again,” Nadarevic said. “I want to go back to the rivers and lakes and fish a little bit, but I’ve got to focus on track first.”
Nadarevic is hoping to reel in some WPIAL and PIAA titles this spring.
You won’t find many throwers in the state as talented as Nadarevic, a 6-foot, 230-pound senior at Gateway High School who also has quite an interesting back story. Nadarevic and his family emigrated from Bosnia-Herzegovina when he was 10 years old, and he has been throwing the discus and shot put for just over two years.
“He took a love to it and hasn’t stopped since,” said Mo Washington, one of his coaches at Gateway.
Nadarevic has season-best marks of 172 feet, 7 inches in the discus and 59-5½ in the shot put, both of which rank first in the WPIAL. According to MileSplit, that shot put mark is tops in the entire state. Already this season, Nadarevic has broken the school discus record that had stood for 52 years. He’s now nearing the shot put record that was set 43 years ago.
“I want to solidify myself as the best shot putter in the state for the Class of 2025. That’s one of my first goals,” Nadarevic said. “My second goal is to break the shot put record for my school, which is 63-1½. I know I can do it. And my last goal is to get double gold at states. That would be a dream come true.”
Nadarevic and his family came to the United States to pursue the “American Dream” in January 2018. They landed in Monroeville because that’s where Dino’s grandparents moved to when they came to the United States in the 1990s during the Bosnian War.
“Europe is a beautiful continent and Bosnia is a beautiful country, but the opportunity here and the opportunity there are exponentially different,” Nadarevic said. “Here there’s a lot more opportunity to succeed, so my parents wanted a better future for my brother and myself.”
It’s paid off. Nadarevic’s brother, Damir, is a freshman at Pitt, where he majors in biology. Dino committed to Duquesne on Monday. Dino had originally signed with Saint Francis but reopened his recruitment following the news that the school will be reclassifying from Division I to Division III. Dino will be on a track and field scholarship at Duquesne. An outstanding student, he boasts a 4.16 GPA and also plans on majoring in biology before going on to dental school.
Nadarevic, who now speaks excellent English, played soccer growing up in Bosnia, but his athletic participation in the United States had been limited to a few years of football in middle school. That was until a friend suggested he give track and field a try in 10th grade.
“He said, ‘Come and try preseason conditioning.’ And I was like, ‘It can’t hurt.’ So I went and tried it,” Nadarevic said. “I tried the shot put a little bit. I was like, ‘This seems pretty fun, let me do the whole season.’ I did the whole season, I fell in love with it, and now we’re here.”
Nadarevic said he considered playing football in high school, as well, but once he got involved in track and field, he chose not to due to the possibility of being injured.
Throwing the discus and shot put was entirely new to Nadarevic, so he decided to teach himself some of the ins and outs in the early going. That included building a makeshift throwing circle at his home and watching instructional videos on YouTube.
“I would watch YouTube videos, and I would just try to replicate it, and just hundreds of reps. Three hours a day every day. It was a lot,” he recalled.
Added Washington, “It was completely new to him. He taught himself how to do the rotational spin. From there he kept drilling and building off of it. And it’s paid dividends.”
Nadarevic, who said he was about 5-10, 195 at the time, added that he just went out and had fun his sophomore season. His top throw in the discus was 117-1, and his best mark in the shot put was 38-0¾. To put the giant progress he has made into perspective, Nadarevic finished 45th in the discus and 38th in the shot put at the Baldwin Invitational that season. When he competes at that meet again next Friday, he will be one of the favorites to win both events.
It was during his junior season when Nadarevic made a big jump and realized this was something he was really good at. He threw a season-best 168-3 to place second in the discus at the Baldwin Invitational. He went on to place fourth in the shot put and fifth in the discus at the WPIAL Class 3A championships, and his season-best heave of 54-8¼ in the shot put earned him a seventh-place finish at the PIAA championships.
“That’s when I was like, ‘Now it’s time to focus in and dial in.’ It felt like I had a talent, and if I could put my determination and hard work into it, I could make something a lot bigger out of that,” he said.
Has he ever. After placing second in the shot put at the PTFCA indoor state championships, Nadarevic unleashed a throw of 172-7 to win the discus at the TSTCA Championships on April 12. That broke the school record previously held by Wayne Marinclin, who went 172-3 his senior season in 1973. Marinclin went on to throw at Bowling Green.
Marinclin had never met Nadarevic prior to him breaking the record, but it just so happens that he is now helping to coach him.
“He wanted to meet me because that was my record all those years. I thought that was cool,” Marinclin said. “After I talked with him, he asked me if I could look at some photos and videos [of Nadarevic throwing]. I said, ‘Sure.’ And it’s kind of progressed from there.
“He picks up things quickly. He’s like a sponge. He asks a lot of questions. He’s a very mature individual for that age.”
Very strong, too. A quick look at Nadarevic will tell you that he spends a lot of time in the weight room.
“He lifts like he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Williams said.
Williams is a volunteer assistant at Gateway and one of several individuals who help instruct Nadarevic, with Marinclin and longtime Gateway head coach Tom LaBuff being the others.
Competing at last week’s Butler Invitational, which included 94 schools, Nadarevic won the discus courtesy of a throw of 161-7 and was third in the shot put following a heave of 55-1. Just like his discus PR, Nadarevic’s shot put PR of 59-5½ came at the TSTCA Championships. That put him less than 4 feet away from the school record of 63-1½ set by Bob Buczkowski in 1982. Buczkowski was a PIAA shot put champion and a football standout who played at Pitt and was selected by the Los Angeles Raiders in the first round of the 1986 NFL Draft.
“Every thrower wants to hit 60 feet. That’s a magical number,” said Nadarevic, who had a top mark of 60-1 during indoor season. “I know that big throw is there, and I’m ready to show that this Saturday [at the South Fayette Invitational].”
Added Washington, “He has a 60-foot throw sitting in there. It’s all about putting it together now.”
Nadarevic appears to be doing a good job at that this season, one he is hoping will end with not only a school shot put record but also WPIAL and PIAA titles in both events.
And considering he’s only been competing in the sport for a little over two years, it’s safe to say his potential beyond high school is pretty high.
“I think he’ll be a good collegiate thrower,” Marinclin said. “However far he wants to throw depends on how much he wants to work on it.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.