When it Comes to Hammer Throwers, Even Bedard isn't Sure
Event is the athletic version of trying something new in college
With his sterling reputation as a throws coach, even Brian Bedard isn’t sure. Not when it comes to the hammer throw.
The event is just not part of many high school track programs, at least not nationally. There are pockets, but the veteran Colorado State track and field coach figures maybe 10 percent of the country participates.
Still, it’s an event which scores points in college, and he can’t just bypass the chance. As it turns out, the Rams have been pretty good at it, too, over the years. Every now and then he runs into a high school athlete who had thrown the hammer. Or he’s found somebody from a foreign country who has done the event growing up. The most popular avenue for him is good old-fashioned trial and error.
“Or you build them. You make one. You try to identify someone that you think has some of the attributes that makes a decent hammer thrower,” Bedard said on Friday, the first day of the Jack Christiansen Invitational. “They come in different shapes and sizes. There’s no real magic -- hey, this person will make a great hammer thrower. Someone that rotates well, someone with fast feet, those are the kind of things you look for, but they don’t always take to it, because it is a bizarre event, a strange movement you don’t do anywhere else in your life, so some people take to it really well, and some athletes we try and it just doesn’t work out.”
A look at the top 10 male throwers in school history reveals one athlete – Mattias Borrman (second all-time at 225-2) – who had thrown a hammer before arriving at Colorado State, and he said it was because he made one himself as a youth back in Sweden. And when it broke, he stopped. Perusing the women’s list, there are two in the top 10 who came to the Rams with experience. One was Linnea Jonsson (another Swede) and Haley Showalter, who jumped into sixth place on Friday with a throw 0f 201-1, just behind teammate Tarynn Sieg, who won the event with a 203-1. It was her first foray into the 200s, and it solidified her fifth-place standing.
For Sieg, it was a good day, because it was a personal record. For Showalter, it was a good day, too. It wasn’t her best throw ever, but it was her best throw as a Ram and her best effort in quite a long time. So long, in fact, she almost forgot what it felt like.
Outside the circle, she told her teammate it’s not often you smile when you don’t PR, but this was a glorious moment for a young lady who entered college as one of the top preps in the event, and then promptly set the Wisconsin record as a true freshman at 207-3.
As she knows, it can be easy to fall in love with the event, but it’s just as simple to get into a rut.
“It’s really common. My story, I’ve been in a rut for three, almost four years,” she said. “I haven’t PR’d in five years, and I was just excited to throw over 60 meters for once, because I haven’t competed in three years and I took a year off. It’s really easy to get into a slump with it. I’ve been in a slump for a really long time.
“That felt incredible. If you would have told me five years ago I would be a sixth-year senior throwing under a PR, I probably would have cried, mad and upset, because I had such high hopes for my throwing career. But after all I’ve been through and all the struggles I had to endure, it felt really, really good to have a somewhat decent distance.”
Deep down, college is about new experiences. A freshman may enroll with the intention of being an accountant and walk away with a mechanical engineering degree. It is a time to reach out and explore new things. If you’re a thrower at Colorado State, that means giving the hammer a whirl.
“You come in, start something new, find a passion and run with it,” Avery Lux said. “Definitely the same.”
I don’t think there’s anybody who just picks it up day one and says, ‘I’ve got this.’ You feel it, and if you can build, then you do.Avery Lux
It wasn’t like Sieg grew up in Eaton tossing a hammer all of the place. Or even a javelin. Yet she is the only woman in school history to have found a spot in the top 20 in all four throws, including the discus and the shot put, an event she holds the school record.
She remembers the beginning stages of learning the hammer and Bedard telling her to keep a trash can close by, because, well, she was going to get nauseous learning to generate the necessary speed.
She hated it. And some days, she still does. Like with most things, it depends on the day and how she’s doing. Sometimes the relationship feels toxic. Others, like Friday, it pays you back.
“It is very weird in comparison, especially growing up,” Sieg said. “I’ve been throwing the discus and shot since I was 14, so it makes more sense to me and critiquing it and making adjustments in the ring is easier. The hammer, it’s kind of nice, because you don’t start with any bad habits, but coming into college, you have no idea what’s going on.
“It’s also a lot of fun, because I’ve never done it.”
There is not blueprint for Bedard. There’s not a body type for the event; there are multiple. Big and small can be effective, even successful. It’s trial and error.
He gives them the basics, then he waits to see if the event clicks. It won’t for everybody, that’s for sure. But there are certain keys which will lead him to push others a bit more.
“Good feet, good balance, they have some speed, because in the end, ball speed and angle of release is what makes it go far,” Bedard said. “In order to move a hammer fast, you have to be fast, too. I do look at overall speed in an athlete. Then again, it’s about trying it and see who takes to the technique. It is a strange movement. I can get people to a certain level, but then there’s a higher level learning that happens to get to the NCAA type athlete.
“I can spoon feed them so far, and the can get the basics down. I can probably get them to 190 feet, then past that, I think it really takes a commitment on the athlete’s part to understand and feel the event and take ownership of it.”
That’s what happened to Lux. He threw the shot and discus at Fossil Ridge High School, then walked on at Western Washington. That’s where he was introduced to the hammer. The coaches there liked his numbers in the weight room, which they figured gave him a better-than-average chance.
He liked it right away, but it took a while to become comfortable, then even good at the event, which he won Friday with a throw of 192-9, edging out teammate Beau Gordon (192-0).
“It took a while. It took about a year to get some consistency and be able to have a groove,” Lux said. “Since then, I’ve been working on getting faster and smoother. To get a feel for it, it took a couple of years. By the second year, I was able to catch a corner, and I was like, OK, I can build here. It’s something that gradually comes over time. I don’t think there’s anybody who just picks it up day one and says, ‘I’ve got this.’ You feel it, and if you can build, then you do.
“That’s the nature of the throw and how you learn it, too.”
Like Bedard said, the athlete has to find a passion for it to really get the nuances and find the secrets which work for them.
For instance, Sieg said she still doesn't have a natural feel for the event all the time. She throws everything, but the shot put is her main focus. She puts in a couple of days of work into the hammer throw, resulting in about 30-40 throws a session. She built from the bottom up, and on some days, she still feels that way.
Getting better at it pushed her to find more. She watched Olympic throwers and how they moved their feet and created speed.
Lux did the same thing, too, taking his body into consideration.
He said he’s small for a hammer thrower, and the 6-foot-2, 240-pounder said so with a straight face. He has a point, when he’s on the track. Away from it, not so much.
“When I’m around other groups of people, I have a little moment of crisis in who I really am,” he joked.
“The thing I love about it is you can kind of be a little guy while you’re doing it. There’s so many different way how you can do it,” Lux added. “All that really matters is how you can put speed into the ball. Any one from different size, different strengths, different shapes, they can all just come together and whip it out. I like it.
“For myself, I like to think I’m pretty strong. Some of these guys are just genetically built different. I try to blend power and speed, so I definitely hit it as hard as I can in the weight room. My main emphasis is speed, the speed of myself, the speed of the ball, the speed of the implement. I’m just trying to go fast, be light, be quick, move in ways some of those bigger guys can’t do.”
None of it is easy to learn. Showalter knows that as well as anybody.
She started throwing the hammer in high school because her dad urged her to do so. She didn’t like it, but she did have some early success, and that was a rush and a challenge built into a powerful combination.
Friday, those old feelings came pouring back, which felt exhilarating. She almost quit the sport. Then when she decided to come back, the pandemic hit. More time away. Then the frustration of doing well in practice but not in meets. The topper was not approaching the distances she had thrown.
In one throw, she went from wondering why she came back to being happy she did.
“I’m just glad to kind of glad to be back over a barrier I haven’t been over in several years,” Showalter said. “I’m glad I did. I talked to Maria Muzzio, my roommate on the team … I had such a bad practice yesterday, I don’t know why I do this, I’m so mad. I’ve told Bedard this. Sometimes I think to myself, should I have come back and thrown? The last five meets have been really rough. He said no, it’s in you, I’ve seen it in practice.”
They all had. Sieg has said her arrival has been great for her and her improvement in the event. And if anybody was nearly as happy as Showalter, it was the girl who edged her out in the finals.
“It was amazing. She’s been working so hard, and honestly, having her take a year off and come back and perform, it’s honestly an inspiration in seeing she’s able to put her body and mind and soul back into it,” Sieg said. “She throws that in practice all the time, so seeing her do it in a meet, I was so happy for her.”
The reality is, for most of them, the event is still new. Some, like Lux, loves it. Now it’s his favorite event and pretty much the only one he does. Sieg can understand Showalter, because the hammer for her is a love-hate relationship.
But it’s college. You find something new, you give it a try and see how it goes. It’s given them all a chance to reinvent who they all thought they were as athletes. Even the rare souls who were familiar with what they were getting themselves into by stepping into the ring.