From the Pain of Parkland, Cal's Isaiah Shaw Finds Purpose Over 400 Meters

A survivor of the nation's worst high school shooting incident, Shaw will run at the NCAA West Regional meet

Cal quarter-miler Isaiah Shaw / Photo by Mia Zamora Johnson

The horrific event Isaiah Shaw lived through on Feb. 14, 2018 is not the reason he was able to run the fastest 400-meter time by a Cal athlete in 39 years at the Pac-12 Track and Field Championships.

But that day six years ago did alter his outlook and approach to all things.

Shaw ran the second-fastest time in program history 10 days ago when he clocked 45.51 seconds for the one-lap race at the Pac-12 championships in Boulder, Colo.

No one at Cal has run faster since 1985 when Peter Howard set the still-standing record of 45.46. Cal sprints coach Ronnye Harrison won’t be surprised of Shaw eclipses Howard’s record at the NCAA West Regional meet at Fayetteville, Ark., which begins Wednesday.

The top 12 finishers in each event in Friday’s regional quarterfinals qualify for the NCAA nationals, June 5-8 at Eugene, Ore.

“I believe he can break 45,” Harrison said. And if Shaw qualifies for the nationals? “I’d cry,” the coach said. “They know how I am about high-end performances, I get emotional. I cried when he ran the 45.51 . . . I just didn’t tell nobody.”

Now a junior, Shaw’s best time a year ago was 47.11. He ran 45.85 in the opening round at the Pac-12 before chopping more than a third of a second off that a day later.

Shaw called it “kind of an unbelievable time,” although he said his goal for this year was 44.7. That’s a lofty ambition, he knows, but it’s by design. “I like to set my bar really, really high. It gives me a stronger drive to do better, even in the little things.”

He has made dramatic progress through a disciplined approach to training on and off the track, including weight lifting, diet and sleep.

“Just from being focused. I want to do better every meet I go to,” he said. “That requires working hard every time I go out on the track and not really taking any days off.”

“He’s a hard-core young man who works hard on everything,” Harrison said. “His academics are strong. I never have to talk with him.”

Shaw acknowledges he wasn’t always as organized and detail-oriented as he is now. 

Some of that is simply maturity but the events of Feb. 14, 2018 — during his freshman year in high school — changed his outlook forever.

Not surprising, because it was a day where he pretty much stared death in the face.

Shaw attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And in the early afternoon that day in 2018, everything went upside down.

“I remember the day perfectly,” he said. “We were giving presentations on history projects. I remember right in the middle, the fire alarm went off. We go down to the far end of the building where the stairwell is . . . and I remember some of my fellow students running back out of the stairwell. 

“I didn’t know what was going on until I heard someone yell Gun! I was like, there’s no way this is real, right?”

Students were quickly ushered back toward their room. “I was one of the last people to get to the classroom,” Shaw said, “and I remember seeing the gunman coming up through the door of the stairwell.”

Locked in their room, Shaw said, “There were a lot of shots going off. For the most part I was just waiting and praying. I texted my parents.”

The gunman never tried entering Shaw’s classroom, but 17 people were killed that day, including 14 students, in the deadliest U.S. high school shooting in history.

Although the episode was over fairly quickly, Shaw said he and classmates were kept in their class for close to an hour until they were released by SWAT officers. 

“I got to see what that hallway looked like . . . it was bad,” Shaw said. "It was on Valentine’s Day and an image that’s been burned in my mind, there was a teddy bear in the middle of the hallway and a pool of blood around it.”

Shaw said one of the victims was a friend, and he received counseling in the days afterward. Classes were canceled for a couple weeks, as he recalls.

He finally returned to class . . . and to track practice, which provided some small measure of refuge from the real world.

“I love the sport so much. It’s definitely been like therapy for me, especially after that event,” he said. “It also gave me some more push, some more drive to be better. Gave me a purpose. 

“I’m living my life. I was given a second chance. I don’t want to waste a second chance. I’ll live and achieve things for people that can’t do that anymore.”

WEST REGIONALS: The Bears will have 30 entries at the West meet, where the men complete in the first round on Wednesday and quarterfinals on Friday, with the women set for Thursday and Saturday. Among Cal’s qualifiers are Pac-12 champions Rowan Hamilton (hammer throw), Skyler Magula (pole vault) and Jeff Duensing (shot put). Hamilton, a graduate transfer from the University of British Columbia, is the NCAA leader in the hammer and was voted Pac-12 Men’s Field Athlete of the Year.