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THROWING NEWSThrowing the hammer . . . from Point A to Zen By ABBY HAIGHT May 4 2003 EUGENE -- Adam Kriz walked on to the University of Oregon track and field team five years ago to throw the discus, because it was challenging and elegant and he thought he was pretty good at it. But on the first day of practice, a coach handed Kriz a hammer, which plunged him into a profound relationship -- as simple as love and as confounding as life. "Everything is about throwing far," Kriz says. "And to throw far, you have to be yourself. To be yourself, you can throw far." At 22, Kriz is raw. He is building strength and technique. But he is part of an unmatched hammer throwing lineage, carrying a generational torch for one of track and field's quirkiest events. The man who put the hammer in Kriz's hand was Stewart Togher, the Scots coach credited by many as the guru of American hammer throwing. Lance Deal, in his first year as a volunteer coach for Oregon, guides Kriz now. Deal, the nation's best hammer thrower for more than a decade, is Togher's protege. Togher retired as Oregon's throws coach after 16 seasons in 1999. But Deal preaches Togher's philosophy -- blending technique, strength and a zen awareness that extends beyond the throwing circle and into everyday life. He coaches an event that gets little public attention and even less corporate support to a student who eagerly embraces its obscurity and its challenge. It is an unlikely link to the divine, a 16-pound ball of steel on the end of a three-foot steel cable, that when thrown with enough skill and strength, can sail 70 mph before landing in a spray of dirt and grass. But that is how Deal describes a perfect throw -- to open the soul, to touch the divine. It is a pole vaulter soaring 18 feet or a runner clocking a 3:50 mile. "It's a miracle, as far as I'm concerned," Deal says. Capturing that feeling on the athletic field means you can capture it in other fields of life. "It's making everything feel that way," he says. "The hammer is really complicated and to master it feels really good. Well, life is really complicated and to master it feels good. "At the end of the day, it's finding the thing you love to do and being able to do it is the reward itself," Deal says. Kriz came to UO from Toledo, where he was a Class 3A discus champion and shot put runner-up, a lineman in the East-West Shrine football game and a letterman in wrestling. The Ducks did not offer a scholarship, but Kriz wanted on the team anyway. The first day of practice changed his plans. The Oregon coaches thought the 6-foot-2, 245-pound Kriz was too small to succeed as a shot putter or discus thrower -- not the massive 6-4 or 6-5 and 290 pounds like some of the nation's top throwers. The hammer requires great strength -- especially thighs and back -- but also technique and leverage. Kriz's size was not a negative for the hammer. "Stewart was the coach," Kriz says. "He handed me the hammer. If I could spin around four times and throw it and stand up, I could come back the next day." Kriz had seen the hammer before. He watched the 1996 Olympics on television and saw Deal, on a mighty final throw, take the silver medal. But when the hammer portion came up on the instructional videos for throwers in high school, Kriz pressed the fast-forward button. "Yeah, that's goofy," he remembers thinking. Kriz hated the hammer at first, hated it for the first six months. But also he was compelled to keep trying to make it work -- to connect the spin and the speed and the release. The hammer became a challenge. Then it became a compulsion. Finally, it became a passion. Togher worked with Kriz in his first redshirt season, before retiring. Kriz grew stronger. He threw 191 feet, 3 inches as a freshman, 194-8 as a sophomore and won the Pacific-10 Conference championship as a junior, when his best was 210-7. This season, Kriz leads the Pac-10 with his 219-9 at the Oregon Invitational late last month, and he hopes to defend his title at the Pac-10 championships May 17-18 in Los Angeles. "In life, throwing my hammer is the No. 1 priority, but I don't feel like I'm giving up anything," he says. "I enjoy waking up and coming to practice in the morning." Deal leans against the hurricane fencing that lines the hammer cage, a tall structure similar to a baseball backstop that stops errant throws. Deal designed Oregon's cage, sold the design and is building his practice as a licensed massage therapist. He watches Kriz as he addresses a practice throw. Kriz takes a deep breath. Steps into the 7-foot-diameter ring and snugs his toes against the edge of the ring. Gently swings the hammer forward, back and, with the hammer gathering momentum, turns it twice around his head before crouching into a full turn. One, two, three, four, each faster than the other, and he releases the hammer with a sharp exhalation of breath. The hammer sails dark against the gray afternoon sky, then lands with a soft thud. Keep your head up, Deal tells Kriz. "It's like my wife, Nancy, tells our daughter, Sarah, when she's on her horse: 'Lead with your heart,' " Deal tells Kriz. Then, after the thrower walks away, Deal says quietly, "Whenever it's touchy-feely, I blame it on Nancy. But it's what I believe." Kriz throws more than a dozen times. One of his last throws clearly flies farther than the rest. Kriz smiles. Remember that exact feeling, Deal says. "At the end of the day, it's the mastery of the movement, because it's such an enigma," Deal says. "It's effortless power. You've got to bash this thing as hard as you can. But you can't try to do it." Deal, 41, retired from competition in 2000, after his fourth Olympic Games and a career unmatched by any American hammer thrower. Like Kriz, Deal played high school football. But when he arrived at Montana State University, he gave up a football scholarship to pursue throwing. Eventually, his passion homed in on the hammer. Moving to Eugene in 1985, Deal began working with Togher and training with Ken Flax, the Oregon thrower who would become a two-time national champion. "For the first few years, I wasn't the best thrower, and that was the motivation," says Deal, who won his first of nine U.S. titles in 1989. "But, in the 1990s, it was Stewart. He was the one at practice who was in my face, who said, 'You know, the Russians are out there. The Europeans.' " By the '90s, Deal threw alone. He holds 16 of the top 20 U.S. throws, led by his American record of 270-9, set in 1996. Only Jud Logan has cracked the top 20, and his throws were in 1986, 1988 and 1992. But no one else has come close. Kevin McMahon's 249-0 was last season's best. John McEwen has the best throw this season -- 245-2. Even when he came out of retirement "for fun" last year, Deal managed to win the U.S. championship. Deal thinks it takes at least seven years of training for a thrower to reach his or her peak -- physically, technically and, perhaps most important, mentally. "To do that enough times that it becomes natural, so you don't have to worry about the technique, so you can just bash it, that takes a lot of throwing," he says. "If there was some way you could meld a 40-year-old's brain with a 20-year-old's body, you'd have a really good hammer thrower." Kriz plans to continue throwing the hammer after he graduates with his degree in exercise and movement science. He has been throwing for just five years. His potential hasn't been tapped. He has the right personality. "He's stubborn enough," the coach says. Kriz knows life will lead him in many directions. But, right now, he only cares about the hammer. "It's me," he says. "It's what I do." 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