Nixa's 6-foot-8 freshman Jackson Cantwell has Olympian parents, world records and a 33 ACT score

Just a week after his 14th birthday, Jackson Cantwell sat down to take his ACT before he entered his freshman year at Nixa High School.

Cantwell decided in the weeks prior that it would be "fun" to study for the test, which is typically given to juniors and seniors as they prepare for college applications. He took different online courses in preparation before it was time to do it for real.

Shortly after taking it, Cantwell learned that he earned a 33, putting him in the 98th percentile of recent high school graduates.

He didn't even finish the math portion.

"I've always thought a little bit differently about school compared to how most people would," Cantwell said. "I've enjoyed it a lot. I don't know why I've always enjoyed school this much but whenever I get passionate about something, I'm going to study it."

The high ACT score is just the latest part of what makes Cantwell one of the more impressive incoming freshmen you'll ever hear about.

The 14-year-old stands at 6-foot-8, 260 pounds entering his freshman year on the Nixa High football team. He owns track and field world records, he out-lifts everyone in the weight room and both of his parents were Olympians.

Cantwell is already grabbing attention as a high-level football prospect although he's never played a game of high school athletics. He'll be an offensive tackle on the football team, a potential standout on the basketball court and will continue to shine during his track and field events as his parents did before him.

"It's pretty amazing," Eagles head coach John Perry said. "He has not only been blessed genetically from his height but he's also been blessed with parents who have put a work ethic in him to where he likes to work out and get stronger. He likes to be better than he was the day before and everybody doesn't have that."

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Cantwell is the son of former USA Olympians Christian and Teri (Steer) Cantwell. Christian Cantwell is a five-time world champion and won a silver medal in the shot put at the 2008 Beijing games and in 2004 had the top four shot put throws in the world. Teri Cantwell participated in the 2000 Sydney games and was a two-time NCAA shot put champion at SMU.

In 2008, Jackson was born two weeks before his due date at 11-pounds, 2 ounces while measuring in at 24.5 inches. He grew three-to-four inches every year and towered over every Nixa Eagle at a recent football practice. He's already taller than the average NFL offensive lineman.

At a recent combine in Columbia, Jackson ran a 40-yard dash in just over five seconds. He has a 27-inch vertical jump and had the second-biggest hands at the event. While he was in eighth grade, Perry posted a video on Twitter showing Jackson benching 315 pounds three times. His dad thinks Jackson could max out at 360 right now.

"I don't want to call anyone a natural because he works hard at it," Christian Cantwell said. "But he has a gift for sure. It's not hard to see. I was really strong and his mom was too. So maybe there's some genetic component to it but I'm just as surprised as everyone else, quite frankly."

Christian Cantwell had a feeling early on that Jackson was going to be unlike others. He remembered Jackson benching 85 pounds as a five or six-year-old when the world record recorded by AAU Track and Field is listed at 52.9 pounds.

International achievements followed thanks to Jackson's relentless work ethic and love for it. He currently owns world records in the shot put and discus throws for 12- and 13-year-olds. Christian Cantwell anticipates Jackson being able to throw a shot put 70 feet this upcoming year which would be a world record for 14-year-olds and beat the MSHSAA state record by more than three feet.

Previously: Dominant Dozen: The Ozarks' best high school football players of the 2021 season

Although the Cantwell name is well-known in track and field circles, Jackson has made a name for himself because of that work ethic and perhaps because of the amount of food he eats to go along with it.

It's a lot of food.

Jackson downs multiple Subway footlongs every day in addition to multiple steaks, burgers or chicken he eats along with rice. Every other day, in addition to everything else he eats and the protein bars he snacks on, his father will buy him an entire large pizza on the way home from work.

"Especially with inflation, I'm like 'my gosh, this grocery bill has been killing me lately,'" Teri Cantwell said with a laugh.

He also works hard at everything. If he has a goal, he's going to achieve it.

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Much like when he started studying for the ACT, he'll set his mind to goals in the weight room. Currently, he wants to beat all of his mother's personal records with his sights set on one day beating his dad's 641-pound bench press. Christian Cantwell laughed and said it would never happen.

"I'd love to beat it but that's going to be a pretty hard thing to do," Jackson said. "I'd love to be able to do that mainly because he still thinks he will always be better than me. It's a little bit of motivation. I could probably bench 360 right now and I'm a freshman in high school, so it's not like it's bad. I'm just very far off from where I plan to be in the future."

"Christian laughed out loud, so the mama bear in me knew that he's now going to do it," Teri Cantwell said. "That will be very hard, but you never know."

Jackson is also one who thinks way down the line. He knows he wants to be a college athlete but he's not sure which sport he'll choose yet. His favorite sport is "whichever one is in season."

With his classes, Jackson mapped out his future during the final semester of his eighth-grade year. He was in the high school's honors algebra class as an eighth-grader and he has plans to take advanced placement classes throughout the next four years.

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When he was studying for the ACT, he taught himself trigonometry and then he started teaching his parents the different sections as well. He didn't finish the math portion of the ACT because he took his time on each answer and still managed to score a 31 on the section while guessing the last 10 when the time was running out.

"When he walked out, he said 'I don't think I did very good,'" Teri Cantwell said. "Obviously, he still did very well."

The Cantwells have no worries about Jackson's motivation going forward. They say their son is his own harshest critic and it will only lead to him getting stronger in the weight room and better on the football field while eventually scoring higher on the ACT.

The sky is the limit for Jackson. It's only a matter of what he'll eventually want to do.

"It's always cool to see your kids succeed at anything and I want to see him succeed at whatever he wants to do," Christian Cantwell said. "Whenever he was young and we were having him throw, I never honestly thought he was going to be as good as what he is. It wasn't like he jumped out of the womb and he was really good at it. Seeing the stuff he's done has been awesome.

"With him, I think he's just scratching the surface. I really do."

What do Jackson Cantwell's coaches say about him?

John Perry, Nixa head football coach

Cantwell's name has already been tossed around when Perry has discussed with his college coaching friends about future prospects.

Perry recognizes Cantwell is raw in the sport but he sees growth every time he steps on the field. Perry said football might have been Cantwell's fourth-or-fifth priority in athletics until he joined the high school team.

Recently, Perry took Nixa's offensive linemen to a camp in Oklahoma and brought the incoming freshman along to compete against the sophomores. On the first day, Perry saw Cantwell struggle because it wasn't anything he's done before.

"If I want to be a classical pianist, then I pick up and start the piano today, I'm not going to be very good today and I'm not going to be very good tomorrow and I'm not going to be very good in a week," Perry said. "But down the road, I could be very good if I put in the time. That's his situation in football, he just hasn't done it. There is no experience, but because of the type of person he is, his intelligence and the way he carries himself, Day 2, he's a very different person."

Perry said on the second day of the camp, Cantwell already had it figured out. During competitions that took place during the day, Cantwell advanced to the championship of the sophomore age group.

"He's a sponge, and he's learning and is a kid that when he gets it, he's gonna have it and we're going to have a special player," Perry said. "But we're not going to throw him in there and rush him to get to the point of that. We're going to let him grow as a normal ninth-grade football player. When he's ready to play and contribute, we'll discuss that."

Rob Yanders, Yanders Law AAU basketball coach

Cantwell said he expects to immediately play with the varsity boys basketball team as they're coming off a state runner-up finish this past season. His AAU coach said that's exactly where Cantwell should be.

Yanders called Cantwell a "Division I athlete" and that it will be just a matter of what sport he decides to play down the line. He laughed about a photo of Cantwell's basketball team as he towered over all of the others in the back. He truly looked like a "man among boys."

"People may look at him and may think he's not athletic but he's very quick off his feet," Yanders said. "He's a force to be reckoned with. We've let him add to his game in ways like stepping out on a perimeter and pushing the ball up the floor until the guard comes and gets it. Our deal has been to help him add to his game as much as possible to move forward in life through the sport. He's a very receptive, intelligent young man."

Yanders thought Cantwell was the perfect prospect for first-year Nixa head coach Brock Blansit to build with as he takes over the program. Yanders compared it to Kickapoo when Anton Brookshire, Yanders' nephew, was the team's starting point guard as a freshman when Mitch McHenry first took over as head coach of the Chiefs.

"I think he'll come in and play immediately," Yanders said. "I don't want to pretend that I know what they have in place, but for their program, he's a kid that would definitely be in a rotation. It'd be hard to not play a kid with that stature and those abilities."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Nixa track and field star Jackson Cantwell has bright future