Why Carlin Isles ditched track, NFL to make run at Olympics in rugby
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One year after he left college early to pursue a career as a professional sprinter, Carlin Isles began to experience doubts about the path he had chosen.
He had nearly exhausted his savings. He had yet to secure a sponsor. And while his top times showed promise, they weren’t quite world-class. He needed to shave about three-tenths of a second off his wind-legal personal best in the 100 meters to have a realistic shot at qualifying for the 2012 Olympics later that summer.
“My best bet for the Olympics probably would have been 2016 and even that would have been tough,” Isles said. “At that time I had $500 to my name. I wasn’t sure I could do four more years of struggling.”
Giving up on track and field became a more serious option for Isles when he stumbled across another sport that intrigued him. A highlight video from a rugby sevens match popped into the 22-year-old’s YouTube queue and quickly grabbed his attention.
Isles had never seen rugby before, much less played it, yet he instantly recognized that sevens fit his football and track and field background. Sevens is a more wide-open, fast-paced variation of traditional rugby featuring seven players on both sides instead of the customary 15, making it an ideal platform for a 5-foot-8 dynamo with sprinter’s speed and a kick returner’s knack for eluding tacklers in open space.
Isles researched the sport for a few days, discovered it could be an alternate path to the Olympics and emailed USA Rugby CEO Nigel Melville in hopes of arranging a tryout. Later that night, he prayed for guidance whether to keep chasing his track and field dreams at the Olympic trials or pour his energy into an unfamiliar sport.
“I said, ‘God, if you want me to make this switch, give me a sign,'” Isles recalled.
The next morning at 5 a.m., Isles awoke to his phone ringing. It was Melville inviting Isles to leave his old life behind.
There’s a reason Isles had the confidence to believe he could one day make the Olympics in a sport he scarcely knew existed only days earlier. The Ohio native had already overcome greater challenges throughout a childhood rife with pain and neglect.
Isles’ father was largely absent from his life and his mother was too dependent on drugs to care for him. The last memory Isles says he has of his mom came at age six when he picked a flower and gave it to her as police officers led her away in handcuffs.
For the next two years, Isles and his twin sister drifted between Ohio foster care facilities. Meals were so scarce that he recalls resorting to eating dog food. Birthdays and holidays passed without celebration. Isles also frequently got into fistfights trying to protect his twin.
Everything changed just shy of Isles’ eighth birthday when a middle-class couple eager for more children adopted Isles and his sister. Starlett and Charles Isles brought the twins to suburban Massillon and provided the nurturing, attention and discipline they never received from their birth parents.
“When we first brought Carlin into our family, he was a little rough around the edges,” Starlett said. “He had to defend himself and his sister during the times he was in various foster homes. But we were very loving. We told him that he didn’t have to do that anymore. Once he felt comfortable with us, he started being a kid himself again.”
Hopelessly behind his peers in reading and math when he joined his new foster family, Isles required frequent tutoring to catch up. He’d often get frustrated or cry, but he made gradual progress.
What came easier to Isles was sports — especially those in which his speed was on display.
Not content to just outrace his elementary and middle school classmates, Isles stayed up late researching how he could get faster. He watched videos of sprinters, noted their body angles and running form and recorded what he learned in a notebook, all of which later helped him emerge as a multi-sport star.
At Jackson High, Isles rushed for more than 1,000 yards for the football team as both a junior and senior and set school records in four different track and field events. College coaches were slow to recruit him out of concern over how much pounding his 5-foot-8, 160-pound frame could withstand, yet Isles would probably still have received a Division I offer had he been able to achieve high enough standardized test scores.
Isles instead attended Division II Ashland University, where for two years he shined as a sprinter and return specialist. He earned All-American honors in the 60-meter dash and scored on kickoff returns of 100, 91 and 85 yards.
“There are a lot of athletes who have God-given ability but never make it to the elite level, but he was able to take advantage,” Ashland track and field coach Jud Logan said. “He just brought energy to every practice, that willingness to come in, work hard and do whatever it took to be the best in his sport. He was infectious. He motivated everyone around him.”
Anxious to parlay his whip-crack speed into a steady paycheck and a pro career, Isles left Ashland well shy of his degree and decided to focus exclusively on track and field. He quickly forged a friendship with 2009 U.S. 100-meter champion Michael Rogers, one of the few elite sprinters who was his same height and who had successfully transitioned from a small college to the pro circuit.
Isles shaved his personal best in the 100 meters to a wind-aided 10.13 seconds soon after joining Rodgers’ training group in Austin, Texas. Renowned coach Darryl Woodson insists Isles had the potential to eventually compete for sponsorship money and Olympic berths, but the young sprinter was unwilling to endure two or three more years of financial struggles.
Isles instead chose a different path over an uncertain future in track and field. Soon after receiving Melville’s invitation to try rugby, Isles informed Woodson he was withdrawing from the Olympic Trials and moving to Aspen, Colo.
“I didn’t think he was as patient as he could have been waiting for sponsorship money to come along,” Woodson said. “With his work ethic and the way he was excelling in such a short period of time, he had a ton of potential. He was just one of those guys who wanted it too fast. If he stuck with it, I think he could have been as successful as any sprinter we have now.”
The reason Melville was so quick to return Isles’ email was because the timing was perfect for that sort of experiment. Rugby was four years away from making its first appearance at the Olympics since 1924, and the U.S. sevens team had set a goal of identifying and grooming athletes capable of bolstering its chances of qualifying.
Though Isles had no experience passing or catching a rugby ball and no knowledge of basic rules or strategy, his speed and elusiveness were skills that could not be taught. USA Rugby decided to assess Isles’ potential further by sending him to play for an Aspen club coached by a U.S. sevens assistant.
Isles’ first few months as a rugby player were predictably boom-or-bust.
For every jaw-dropping highlight of Isles blowing past defenders untouched there was a blooper clip of the rugby neophyte taking the ball into traffic and losing possession. For every story crowning Isles as the fastest man in rugby there was another questioning whether he’d ever learn the sport well enough to make that speed a weapon.
“You know how it is when you have a scared rabbit being chased down by a hunter? That’s how he was,” said Mike Friday, who two years ago took over as coach of the U.S. sevens team. “Every now and then if he got the ball and got it in space, he was able to run around somebody, but teams started to realize how to defend him. When teams defended him properly, he’d get himself in a pickle because he didn’t understand the game.”
All the attention Isles received for his highlight clips earned him more than just a contract to play for the U.S. sevens team. The Detroit Lions also signed Isles to their practice squad late in the 2013 season and then invited him to training sessions during the ensuing offseason.
An NFL tryout was a dream fulfilled for a kid who grew up in the shadow of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, yet the timing was terrible for Isles. Wary of spreading himself too thin and derailing his dreams of leading U.S. to the Olympics, Isles left the Lions in Feb. 2014 to once again focus exclusively on rugby.
“People thought I was crazy,” Isles said with a smile. “They were like, ‘What are you doing? Stick with football!’ That’s a lot of people’s dream to go to the NFL. That was a tough one but you’ve got to understand your purpose and what you’re trying to accomplish.”
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Isles’ flirtation with the Lions came at a time when his growth in rugby had plateaued. He had added muscle without sacrificing speed, proven he could take and deliver hits and learned to pass with his non-dominant left hand, but the mental side of the game continued to confound him.
The savior for Isles was Friday, a former professional rugby player who previously coached the English and Kenyan national sevens teams. In his two years coaching the U.S. sevens, Friday has taught Isles how to move without the ball, how to read a defender’s body cues and how to decide when to attack and when to pull back.
“Carlin has learned so much how to use his speed, how to set himself up, and that’s been an incredible thing to watch,” U.S. sevens all-time leading scorer Madison Hughes said. “At the beginning he was a sprinter who played rugby. Now he’s a sprinter who’s also an incredible rugby player.”
Leaving football and track and field behind no longer looks like such a crazy decision now that Isles is bound for Rio.
The fastest man in rugby helped the U.S. sevens qualify for the Olympics last summer and then secured his place on the team by surviving final cuts last month. He’s part of a diverse U.S. team that also features former Arena League football player Perry Baker and current New England Patriots safety Nate Ebner.
An Olympic bid for the U.S. sevens has turned into a financial windfall for Isles. As a result of his flashy playing style, charismatic personality and inspiring backstory, he has nailed down endorsement deals with the likes of Red Bull, Nike, CitiBank and California Almonds.
“I’m making money right now that I never thought I would have,” Isles said, though he admits you’d never know it from his lifestyle. Until recently, he slept on a teammate’s couch in Chula Vista, Calif., to save money.
Helping the U.S. sevens contend for a medal in Rio is the sole focus for Isles this summer, but he continues to entertain the idea of dabbling in other sports. He dusted off his track gear in Portland, Ore., last March and finished fifth in the 60 meters at the U.S. Indoor Track and Field Championships. He also won’t rule out a return to the NFL if a team offers him a chance to compete for a spot on its practice squad or its 53-man roster.
But while Isles’ future could still go in many directions, it’s very likely rugby will still be part of it. Isles is proud he had the courage four years ago to leave his track spikes behind and chase his Olympic dreams in an unfamiliar sport.
“A lot of people doubted me or thought I was crazy, but I was going to paint my picture how I wanted it painted,” Isles said.
Now that self-portrait features a first-time Olympian.
