SOFTBALL-JAVELIN METAMORPHOSIS

This year’s NCAA Division I women’s javelin champion, Dana Pounds, was a former high school softball player of some note from the state of Florida. She had only begun to throw the javelin little more than two years prior to the 2005 NCAA meet. Amazingly, her first legal competition in the javelin was March 30 th of 2003 at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, Florida where she threw a mere 117’ in the qualifying round and did not advance to the finals. In winning the NCAA title, she became the first ever NCAA Division I champion for women in any sport at The United States Air Force Academy and only the third all-time for any gender in any sport. The July issue of Track and Field News, the purported Bible of the sport for track and field, quite accurately tabs “Pounds A Quick Learner’ in its headline regarding the NCAA women’s championship javelin.

The throwing coach at the Academy, Scott Irving, has had unsurpassed success recruiting and coaching former softball and baseball players to new heights in the javelin. He is making a habit of developing unknown throwers and creating conference scorers, conference runners-up, conference champions, NCAA regional scorers, NCAA regional champions, NCAA qualifiers, NCAA All-Americans and NCAA champions. A former collegiate thrower, he had significant success coaching the javelin at the University of Oregon. From 1977-1983 he coached six national javelin champions. However, when he moved to the University of Florida there was no longer a steady stream of in-state high school javelin talent to recruit. The state of Florida does not sanction the javelin for their high school competitions. In fact, only eighteen states sponsor the event. This forced Irving to consider a new approach to recruiting javelin throwing specialists.

In the fall of 1986 Irving wrote all the high school girls’ softball coaches in the state of Florida asking if they had any athletes they thought might have talent in the javelin who were interested in becoming Florida Gators. He received just three replies, but one of those was from a coach who had an athlete, Ruth Ann Brooks, who during the spring of her senior year at Shorecrest Preparatory School, became an All-State selection as a designated hitter. She was also a multi-sport athlete and, more important, a die- hard Gator fan, despite the fact that the University of Florida was not yet sponsoring women’s softball. The title in the sports section of the St Petersburg Times read, ‘UF signs Brooks for javelin---- something she’s never thrown.’ As a Gator javelin thrower, Brooks not only scored in every one of her Southeastern Conference Outdoor Track and Field meet, but also won the conference javelin title her senior year and qualified for the NCAA Championship meet.

Irving found himself in a similar situation coaching men at the University of Illinois in the fall of 1989. There was no high school javelin in the state of Illinois and he felt compelled to take throwers from other disciplines (shot put and discus) and convert them to javelin throwers. The javelin was going to be reintroduced as a conference event during the 1990 season in the Big Ten after decades on the shelf. Former discus thrower/shot putter, as well as stand out pitcher on his Dixon High School baseball team, Brad Lawton, began throwing the javelin during his sophomore year for the Illini. His first year as a javelin thrower was unspectacular. He failed to score in the conference meet and most college coaches would probably have given up on Lawton. Irving surmised that the javelin would be new to many competitors, since all the teams in the conference were not located in states sanctioning the event for high schools. His faith in Lawton’s ability and past success with former softball players turned javelin throwers paid off. Lawton’s fortunes soared in the event. He finally set the Illini school record which stands to this day, finished runner-up at the Big Ten Conference meet his senior year, made the provisional NCAA qualifying standard in the javelin and was the Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient for athletic/academic achievement, the highest honor awarded at Big Ten institutions.

Prior to Pounds emergence on the national javelin scene, Irving found success with former USAFA baseball player Tim Fritz, who set Mountain West Conference all-time and meet records. So, it would appear that creating javelin throwers from other athletic disciplines has become a staple of Irving’s coaching philosophy at the Academy. Clearly his women’s javelin group reflected that philosophy last year when four of six athletes he coached had never thrown the spear prior to their arrival at USAFA That group included former softball players; Pounds, Veronica Dawson and Casey Bayne, as wells as former USAFA pole vaulter Brittany Wright. Both Pounds and Wright scored at the 2005 MWC championship meet. It took Wright three years to master the event sufficiently enough to score in conference. Unlike many softball players she was not an overnight success. What exactly differentiates softball and baseball players from other athletic disciplines making them so suited to javelin throwing? According to Irving, there is no mystery to the fact that arm speed is a key element in determining distance potential for javelin throwers.

One test that has become standard for the Air Force Falcons is the softball throw for distance. While it does provide an excellent indication of javelin throwing potential, a coach, obviously, cannot determine how far a javelin will ultimately be thrown by virtue of this test. For instance, Wright placed seventh in the conference meet with 135’ in the javelin and recorded a lifetime best softball throw of approximately 148’. National champion Pounds has a lifetime best softball throw of 224’ and a 2005 collegiate leading javelin mark of 188’8”. It is, however, instructive to note that there are throwers who have launched the softball farther than Pounds and yet have never won a national title. The softball throw is a predictor of potential, but it is far from absolute.

Ironically, Irving discovered another very good softball thrower last fall while substitute instructing a USAFA tennis class. As a substitute instructor for a college physical education class what are the odds that he would find a javelin thrower? Strange as it may seem, Casey Bayne on that fateful day became another in a long line of softball players to become an Irving-coached javelin thrower. He had paired the USAFA students up for doubles matches and Bayne’s team won the tournament. She was paired with another female and they beat more than one all male team in the process. Irving was so impressed that he asked the two women champions if they had any other athletic background. Bayne had played softball in high school, so Irving invited her to try out for the javelin that day. Thirty minutes later she was throwing the softball for distance. Without any competition and despite throwing into a cold late October wind, six of her throws landed beyond 190’. She made the team and has since moved to number five all-time on the USAFA women’s javelin list in only her first year throwing the spear. Irving believes that the junior to be is destined to qualify for the NCAA meet.

Given all the testing that he has done with the measured softball throw, Irving does believe he has established some norms that allow him to make cuts during team tryouts. If a female thrower is near or over 200’ with softball, for example, he is convinced he has someone capable of qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. By the same token, he believes a male thrower has the potential to achieve a similar level if they are capable of near or over 300’ throws with the softball. The question is sometimes asked; why not use a baseball to determine javelin throwing potential? The answer is quite simple - most measuring tapes and facilities will not accommodate 400’ throws with a baseball. A softball is much simpler for measurement purposes, even though there are some very good javelin throwers who struggle throwing the softball.

Irving knows first hand that there are softball and baseball players with tremendous arm speed who never get a good look at playing their primary sport in college. He is convinced that javelin throwing may well be an excellent outlet for many and the ticket to their athletic success, possibly in Olympic proportion. Irving cautions, however, that not every coach will experience the same level of success with javelin throwers that he has enjoyed. It can be a pretty frustrating event technically to coach. The implement is so light and it seems as if it should go a country mile when thrown. The bottom line is that a sound technical grasp of the event is paramount if a coach expects success at the very highest levels.

Turning a former softball standout catcher like 5’2” tall Dana Pounds into a national javelin champion does not happen in a blink of an eye. It takes patience and perseverance. In his first few sessions with Pounds, Irving knew he had a gifted thrower, but it was still a tedious process. While he had no doubt about her potential he was concerned about her losing heart. Despite possessing tremendous explosive power, Pounds threw very few javelins straight during those initial practices. She was hooking and slicing the javelin badly like a novice golfer, but Irving continued to encourage his protégé, as he does all his throwers, sharing nuances of javelin technique refined in nearly three decades of coaching. Fortunately for Irving, Pounds was not only hooking javelins when she threw them, she also became hooked on throwing the spear.

Do Pounds and her counterparts ever miss playing softball? Certainly they do! Yet, what would their chances of being an NCAA All-American or an NCAA Champion be with the round ball at the Division I level? Irving figures the chances of being an NCAA Division I All-American in softball are much less than throwing the javelin. His athletes figure the chances of being such in the javelin are much less without him. If nothing else, it has most definitely given his softball and baseball players another unique athletic option beyond high school that they may not have otherwise had in college.