ANTHOLOGY

The Tales of a Weight Man

I ran track and played basketball at the University of Florida from 1963 thru1970. The following is my perception of the following experiences. There are many hidden and many, hoped for, forgotten tales to be told by the fraternity of athletes that have walked the campus of the University of Florida. I hope that those Gators, that enter this great website, find the energy and inclination to tell their tales. I can’t wait to read some of them.

When one hears the term Track and Field, images of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics showing up Hitler’s supreme race, Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile barrier, or Jim Thorpe winning the 1912 decathlon pop into one’s mind. One would never think of self skewering, dialing for friends, jail time for murder, beer bowling, or see if you can find the hidden shot put. Let me explain.

Let’s start with “jail time for murder/assault with a deadly? weapon.” As any kid, I developed life interests based on my Dad’s influence, publications that I read, and activities that I became involved in, and activities that my teachers pushed me into. I was identified early on as a good athlete. My junior high school teachers/coaches were drooling over me and wanted me to play football, baseball, basketball, and track. I obliged them all and played all 4 sports. What they didn’t know is that I had a small nuclear engine of awesome power within my athletic frame. That engine consisted of shyness and my wish to be able to talk to girls. I figured if I am good at sports they will talk to me and thus my athletic career got off to a great start as there were ample amounts of dedication and passion, all created by my sex drive. Somewhere I read a book about Parry Obrien, the first 60’ shot putter. He so dominated the event that his style became known as the Parry Obrien style that all shot putters had to emulate to be successful. Kind of like the Fosbury Flop, popularized years later as a unique form of high jumping that now dominates the event. Sadly, the Obrien style has succumbed to the spin technique of shot putting and is no more. None of this has anything to do with “jail time for murder” except that it relates to how much time I spent throwing the shot put and becoming fairly good at it. I went on to set the state of Florida shot put record of 60’and a half inch. This stood for a number of years and I had no business setting this record as I maxed out at about 190lbs and was also the state decathlon record holder and was going to the University of Florida on a basketball scholarship. A far cry from the typical shot putter consisting of some football lineman being a weight lifter and hovering around 230lbs plus.

I began my college athletic career playing basketball for Norm Sloan which, again, has nothing to do with “jail time for murder.” Sloan allowed me to run track after the basketball season and track was absolutely my first love. I excelled at most of the activities that I chose to compete in. I wish I could say the same for my basketball skills. Sure I averaged 26 points per game one year in high school and was recruited by over 20 schools but I couldn’t dribble worth a lick. I could shoot from the second row of seats and rebound with the best but please, and I mean, please don’t ask me to dribble the basketball. At 6’3” I was a really short forward and guard was out of the question because of a genetic disorder that I inherited, small hands, and lack of confidence in dribbling resulted in two or three dribbles and a 25’ jump shot. Sooo when basketball season was over I could return to my first love, track and field.

If one thinks about it, playing basketball from September to March doesn’t contribute to success in shot putting. To play “catch up” I would, some days, do two a day weight workouts to try and make up for 7 months of “B” balling it. March was a “turn on” time for me as now I could excel at athletic activities where small hands were not an issue.

I was primarily a “weight man” competing at the university level. Shot put, discus, and javelin. At the end of my “stunted track season” March to the end of May it was time to go home for the summer. Summer employment, usually construction laborer, and then back into the next basketball season which left me little time for training in track events. In 1966 my track coach, Jimmy Carnes, contributed greatly to my athletic endeavors. Of course Coach Carnes knew me in high school, as he recruited me, and my best high school friend Frank Saier, to come to Furman University to run track and play some B ball, but Norman Sloan, the basketball coach at Florida, had an edge on Coach Carnes. Sloan had me attend a summer basketball camp in Jacksonville, along with a number of other high school recruits, 5 who signed with the U of F, , my junior year in high school and I was snowed by Sloan’s sly and cunning demeanor. Being snowed I signed with the U of F to play basketball. Luckily for me and my best high school friend Frank Saier, the first 7’ high jumper in the southeast, Jimmy Carnes took the U of F track coaching job and brought his prized recruit, Frank Saier, with him.

One of the benefits of being a weight man was that you didn’t have to worry about your body weight. You could eat anything you wanted at anytime. I really felt sorry for the high jumpers. They had to constantly monitor their weight. More weight on me meant the potential for more distance in my events more weight on the high jumpers, I think you can figure it out.. Now for the shortcoming. I had to carry those three implements, shot, discus, and javelin, with me prior to away track meets. Consequently, they often times, wound up in my room on the second floor of a three story dormitory in Murphree Area. Our dorm had the unique distinction of having a flat roof with an access ladder that one of the football players had figured out how to open. There was a four foot wall around the area so no one, like a dorm advisor or dean, could see you. Now this was a wonderful asset to our dorm as you could enter the roof and catch a tan. All of the other parts of our dorm wing had an A shaped roof, not very conducive to sunbathing. Some enterprising individual, probably a football player, had even managed to carry a park bench, with concrete ends and 2X4 slats, onto the roof. This was a student/jock oasis in the world of university rules and regulations. This was like that old tree house that you had constructed as a kid except, instead of a tree, you had a finally engineered concrete structure with a 4 foot privacy wall 4 stories above ground level.

Well, one evening, prior to leaving for an away track meet and harboring a weight man’s assortment of implements in my room and lying in my bed, pondering my future and which campus coed I was going to ask out next for a possible, I dare say, soda, an idea popped into my head.

There is a joke, demeaning those with southern accents and the stars and bars tattooed on their arms and proudly displayed on their license plates of their 4-wheel drive vehicles. It goes like this, the joke is told and set up and the punch line is, “Hey Goober watch this.” Well this Goober thought it a great idea to see what would happen if a 16lb steel shot put was dropped from the top of a 4 story structure and what would happen when it makes an impact with the concrete below. Whoever the architect was for our Murphree area dorms it seemed that where ever there was an arch way thru the dorms there was a flat roof with a 4 foot wall around it. Perfect for conducting my experiment. I ambled up to the ladder and, carefully carrying my 16lb implement cradled in my arm, I ascended the ladder and appeared into an area void of any football players sunning themselves, it was about 6pm at night, and I then ventured to the wall overlooking the archway.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, as to what was going to happen when the 16lb ball, falling from 4 stories high, made contact with the concrete of the sidewalk, I surveyed the impact area below. Not being physics major or having, at this point in my life, any training in structuring a “scientific” experiment I completely ignored a few parameters and test protocols like what would happen if someone would walk out thru the archway while this “test” was being conducted.

It was a quiet evening and the assorted sounds of business from the College Inn and a few other Mom and Pop businesses across the street filled the air. I launched the 16lb steel ball from the building and watched it arch toward the concrete below. Also below, much to my Goober surprise, a student walked out from under the archway heading for some business establishment across the street. The shot put missed him by about a foot and hit the concrete just behind him. I remember ducking back within the confines of the concrete walls of the roof and thinking how close I came to spending some time behind much higher walls. I then peeked over the edge of the wall and observed the student looking, curiously above, and then continuing on to his evening’s destination. Obviously, there is not a big market for discarded shot puts as it remained there for my retrieval. I quickly ventured to the scene of the termination of the experiment which, had the worst happened, would have made my decision making for determining my future very simple. My observation of the conclusion of my test was that there was a little pulverized powder from concrete on the steel ball and that concrete is tougher and harder than I thought. Today I would love to talk with the student that was just minding his own business when out of the sky comes “Goober’s comet.” So after all these years I finally prepared and wrote above, my “study,” to be submitted to my professors of the school of engineering, if I ever chose to get a degree in that profession.

We might as well stay with the shot put to its conclusion before moving into the next implement arena. The aforementioned story was the first person I almost hit with the shot put. There is another who I did hit but, lucky for him, it was in high school and the shot put only weighed 12lbs. I, using the Parry Obrien technique, back to the direction of the throw, was preparing to launch a practice throw. Don’t ask me about the confusing semantics of shot putting. You “put the shot,” which is actually a push, then commence to complete a throw rather than a put. Somewhere between the launching of the steel orb which is a “put/push” and when it lands, a “throw” the action changes names?? Kind of like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Two of my teammates were leaning against a fence to the side of the shot put landing area, engaged in dialogue. I looked at the landing area of my practice throw, cradling the shot in my non throwing/putting/pushing hand, someone needs to get shot putting semantics standardized. Focusing visually, and mentally creating an image in my mind of my form, I journeyed the 7 feet to the back of the circle, cradled the ball in my throwing/putting/pushing, whatever the hell it is, hand and proceeded to begin the launch using the best technique that I could conjure up. As the shot flew from my release I suddenly realized that one of my teammates, who had been talking with another teammate against the fence, had decided to move into the area of my practice throw on his way to some important destination.. Had I tried in 200 attempts I would not have been more accurate in hitting my teammate in his left knee. After surgery, and no law suits, Mickey Moncheck was fine and, luckily for me, the statue of limitations had long expired on assault with a blunt force object as he is today a local prominent personal injury attorney. To this day I am still careful when answering my phone.

There is one last tale to tell. No one is hurt nor could criminal charges be levied in regards to the improper use of the 16lb shot put. There may be grounds for theft or detrimental activities contributing to local health issues. This is another “Goober” tale. It was the end of our track season and we returned to Gainesville, in the early evening, and to celebrate the end of our strict discipline of training and avoidance of anything detrimental to our performances over the season we decided to stop by Gatorland. Gatorland was a local beer dispensary that promoted excellence in beer drinking and anyone willing to pay .25 cents for a beer was invited to partake in the activity. We, my teammates in the rental car and I, decided to “get up to date” with our absence of “detrimental activities to athleticism.” We arrived about 11:00pm so we had two hours, the bar closed at 1:00am,” to makeup for three months of abstinence and strict athletic training. As the short evening of libation activities progressed, the conversation wrapped around our season and what we were going to do with our summers. Not wanting the evening to end on such an administrative tone I, Goober, came up with a “brilliant” idea. “Hey”, I said, “anyone want to go bowling?” Needless to say, my teammates were curious about my idea so I offered to show them. As the doors to our brain cell killing activities closed behind us

I went to our car and retrieved my 16lb, the same weight as a bowling ball, shot put from the trunk of our car.

At 1:02am in the morning there is not much traffic on NW 13th Street which easily converted into a bowling alley with a little help from my imagination and a big help from some barley and hops. Performing like a clown and an imbecile for my teammates, of course they were into the imbecile zone also because of the barley and hops, I prepared my show. Like the Goober joke goes, as I took my position in the middle of the 4 lane highway posturing the steel orb, like a bowling ball, in my hands, I said, “Hey watch this.” I performed a perfect approach to the “alley” aiming for the imaginary pins down the lane/NW 13th Street and rolled the shot put like a bowling ball. It was about 5 seconds later that I observed that the road had a meaningful camber to it and the “bowling ball” was sliding to the left side of the road heading for the curb. It was then, that my few functioning neurons, made me aware of the fact there were sewer culverts along side the road built into the curb. I then estimated the path of the University of Florida’s property, the shot put, with what few brain cells that I had that were still functioning and efficient and I saw that the sewer culvert was going to be the last that I would ever see of this particular shot put. Being a very dense sphere of 16lb I am sure the shot put, to this day, resides in that sewer system. Years later I had dinner with my old track coach Jimmy Carnes and chided him for not being very good at keeping track equipment inventoried as he obviously was missing one lost shot put.

Most shot put landing areas are of clay or some compacted earth that makes it easy for the officials to mark the exact distance of the throw/put/whatever. We were at a big meet at the University of Tennessee and it had been raining for weeks. Not really, but what is wrong with a tad bit of embellishment. NO doubt it had been raining. Warming up from the shot put ring the competitors launched their “orbs of competition” out onto the landing area which, because of the rain, was almost a pool of mud. When one launched a throw one would not hear the usual “thumb” of a 16lb steel ball hitting compacted earth but rather, something like the sound that you may, conjure up, of a 16lb steel ball hitting a giant pool of goop. I’ll try here, utilizing the 26 letters of the English alphabet, to put into words the sound; FARSUP-PLUC-KLOP. I’m sorry but that is the best that I can do utilizing our limited 26 letter alphabet. The shot put would, literally, disappear from sight and one had to keep an eye on exactly where it entered the earth in order to not lose it. Then, one had to feel in the mud for the hard metal sphere.

Every competitor was performing under the same conditions. With only limited towel/rag support it was virtually impossible to get the shot-put devoid of any dirt that would act as a lubricant and thus reduce the efficiency of the putting/throwing/what ever the hell one does as one launches the steel orb. One had to get the shot as clean as possible of any material that would come between the palm of the hand of the putter and the shot. A perfectly prepared shot for launch would have a little bit of stickiness due to the almost evaporated saliva that one had put, moments ago, on one’s putting/throwing hand. Needless to say, not one competitor that day had a good and properly prepared shot for a maximum performance. I think everyone was able to find their shot puts from the mud pool and return home with crummy performances and a dirty shot.

Next up is self skewering. The javelin is part of the decathlon, of which I participated, and somewhere in my early college athletic life I was introduced to this implement and I immediately took to throwing it, one definitely does not “put” it so the nomenclature is very clear. It was a cool device to “hurl” thru the air. It would travel much farther than a shot put or discus and its air time was, obviously longer, so one could admire the results of his efforts for a while longer. Upon release it would arch skyward seeking altitude and at times it would wiggle its tail slightly which indicated you had the right number of revolutions per minute to stabilize it in flight.

Borrowing a javelin from the athletic department and carrying it to meets meant that, for short periods of time, I had unsupervised control over this device and its use. J.R. Leach, a shot putter and country boy if my memory is correct, one day suggests, “Hey Harry lets get us some gators with the javelin.” For a fleeting moment I thought, Yeah,” but then some images of “Goober” popped up in my head and I wisely turned down the suggestion. I just could not see me spearing a gator with the javelin, getting caught, and then trying to explain what I had been doing. Now spearing a gator would have been easy had I accurately directed the javelin and made contact with the creature as the point is rather pointed. It is a little known fact, outside the javelin fraternity, that the tail of the javelin is many times sharper and thinner than the point. If you ever happen to appear on Jeopardy and the category is “Which End is Sharpest” and Javelin appears you would prepare your answer in the form of a question and say, “What is the tail.?

Part of the warm-up process for preparing for the javelin event is to do an approach in an open grassy area, like the center of the track oval surrounded by stands and a smattering of friends and fraternity brothers, release the javelin in a low trajectory and make impact with the ground about 20 yds distant. This would coordinate all motor movements with the exception of the proper elevation for launch. The spear would stick into the turf with the tail slightly higher than, say, my waist. Well, one meet, as I was going thru this warm-up procedure and as I was trotting to retrieve my spear I heard, “Hey Harry” from the stands. I turned my head, as I continued my approach to retrieve my shaft, to survey the crowd to see who my admirer was. Two or three strides later I suddenly got a “warning” “warning” signal from some area of my brain. I turned and, had it not been for my long javelin spikes on my shoes, was able to stop one stride short of skewering myself with the tail end of the spear. One more stride, and my weight and momentum, would have, surely, resulted in the tail of the shaft entering my abdomen and more than likely penetrating my liver and exiting out of my back. If that had happened today with Youtube you could probably enter in the search window, “self impalement” and got 4 or 5 cell phone videos of some “goober” doing something stupid.

Besides “self-impalement” I found another use for the tail of my javelin. My momma didn’t raise no stupid boy here. Once again I had the implement in my dorm room, leaving the next day for an away meet. Being on the basketball team meant that Norm Sloan, the Darth Vader of coaches” would occasionally check on his players in the off season to see if they were studying etc during the evening hours. My roommate was Gary Keller, a tall and lanky B-ball player who exemplifies the coined term, “Pond Birds.” Keller, being one of the standout players, meant that Sloan would definitely check on his/our evening activities. For me, I had been given permission to run track, but was, none the less, a member of the basketball team and subject to a room inspection.

We lived on the second floor of a three floor dormitory with an interior rail

ing paralleling the stairwell. I decided to call some girlfriend and while sitting on the stairwell railing, about 5 feet from the phone, proceeded to dial a number utilizing the tail end of the javelin to reach the dialing mechanism. In the middle of my dialing, I heard the dormitory door below open and close and footsteps. Who should appear from the stairwell but “Stormin Norman.” I was so surprised that I kind of froze in the middle of my dialing for a date. Coach Sloan just looked at me for a moment, ducked under the javelin, which was being supported by my right shoulder and the dialing mechanism of the telephone, and calmly walked into our room to check on Keller. I think I completed my dialing and got the date but I don’t remember much after that. It is amazing, utilizing over 100,000 years of evolution, what the human brain can do with simple tools.

I was a witness to a personal skewering, utilizing the javelin, and assisted in the first aid to the unfortunate skew-e. I was a graduate assistant in track during my graduate school days and one of my duties was to do some coaching. It is amazing the number of frat boys that seem to be completely enamored with wanting to throw the javelin. Coaching the javelin was one of my jobs so I got to evaluate the “walk on wanna be’s” who might possibly make the team as a javelin thrower. Before going any further let me say that none of the prospective javelin throwers ever showed any signs of talent or potential and they all failed the tryout for the event. One of these “future Olympians,” would show up about every two weeks or so.

One day, at the track, a prospect walked up to me and introduced himself and asked for a tryout. Before going on here I need to explain how a javelin is handled in various social situations. It, being about 8’ long, is like a long walking stick. In a social situation, the possessor of a javelin, would very appropriately and eloquently, hold the javelin in an upright position, tip to the ground and the tail to the sky, and calmly poke the tip into the ground in order to free up his or her hands for making gestures in the engaging dialogue that might take place. This poor sole, funny I should use that word, as you will see, happened to be in his bare feet. As he started to introduce himself and plant the javelin into the ground he accidently planted the tip of the javelin right into the top of his right foot. I’ll never forget his screams of anguish as he immediately pulled the javelin from his foot and collapsed onto the infield. I remember wrapping his foot with a towel full of ice and held in place with a large ace bandage. I put him in the back seat of my Ford Galaxy with his foot elevated over the front seat on the way to the university infirmary. Trying to make small talk, between his groans of pain and anguish, I asked him if he had ROTC drill this semester. He replied in the affirmative. I replied, “I think you are excused from ROTC drill for the rest of this semester.

I kind of wish I had been young twice the normal number of years that youth encompasses. Imagine the tales I could tell, but then, would I have ever survived?

Steve Williams

I came down to G-Ville Dec 1975 when Brooks Johnson was sprint coach with Jimmy Carnes

I was attending San Diego State Univ where I had a "testy' relationship with the athletic department because I stopped running for the school , The NCAA at that time was at war with me because I was making $$$ in Europe & told everyone that the NCAA was exploiting all scholastic athletes ..

.I came to G-vill to train in peace, I am from the Bronx and back then living in the South was scary .

Jimmy C was the first Southern gentleman I met,, I lived at the" Day's Inn Motel" trained until 1976, after getting injured at the US trials. I returned to SDSU got my degree and moved to Oakland after the 1977 Word Cup Brooks took the Staford Univ Head coach job in1980, .

My G-vill days were great , I would come back and forth in 77-80 to train 2 months a year . I lived with James Pringle in his house and we had a ball. I rented a small Apt from one of the Alumni for $50 a month until Brooks left...The best part of T&F is the "people memories" in G-ville there are many great ones !