These Times

State champ shows me how to throw a discus

Kirk Ericson | Jun 27, 20240

Courtesy of Northwest Sports Photography count

Adrianna Tupolo throws the discus during the 2A state championship meet in May.

I've been filling this space in the Shelton-Mason County Journal for almost seven years, and one of the difficult parts of this enterprise is convincing people to talk to me, especially for column ideas that could be considered odd.

A good approach has been to enlist someone close to me, someone who knows the person I want to interview, and have that person make the pitch for me. It's worked several times, including for a column about an anonymous kidney donor and one about a Swedish fellow who designed a World Cup ski course in North Korea.

It's 50-50 odds that people will agree to play along if I contact them out of the blue. So ... when I sent an email out of the blue on June 13 to Adrianna Tupolo, who recently won the state 2A discus title, to see whether she'd show me how to throw the discus, I was not surprised to not get an immediate response. When I was 17, I might have reacted the same.

Mrs. Ericson and I have two kids. We know how this generation treats email. It's probably like ignoring a smoke signal back in the day.

Nine days later, Adrianna replied by text. She apologized for not being "very good at looking through my emails as often as I should" and that she was willing to talk to me. She finished her perfectly spelled and punctuated note: "I hope you're having a great summer so far!"

Ooh. This is going to be good.

And it was.

Adrianna, her mother, Fiataua, and I met Monday morning near the discus circle, near the football field at North Mason High School. After getting a little background on her, including that her mother and father met while playing volleyball and basketball ("He always picked me to be on his team," Fiataua said), Adrianna and I proceeded to the circle.

Adrianna has been throwing the discus since her first year in high school (she'll be a senior this fall). She won state in May, becoming the first North Mason High School girl to win a track and field title since 1994. Her winning throw was 121.5 feet - 51 feet farther than her best throw her first year. She competes in the javelin and shot put, and she'll be a leader, along with her twin, Adrianne, on the basketball team in the upcoming season.

She's an excellent student and mills timber for the home her parents are building. This is some kid.

The discus circle is about 8 feet across, with a nearly inch-high rim bordering the circle. Mesh netting protects any onlookers - sometimes, discs are released too early or too late. For a throw to count, the discus must land in a zone that's angled outward like an ice cream cone.

I walked out to the landing zone at North Mason High School to watch Adrianna throw. She showed me where 120 feet was, and I walked 15 feet back from that.

I learned later from the Encyclopedia Britannica the wisdom of reducing your chances of getting beaned by a discus. Several ancient Greek deities and celebrities met their end by discus, including a guy named Acrisius: "Perseus accompanied his mother back to her native Argos, where he accidentally struck her father, Acrisius, dead when throwing the discus."

More words to remember: Never turn your back on a discus.

The technique required to hurl a discus is intricate and explosive. It starts delicately like a ballerina and ends with the power of a boxer's overhand right.

It has three parts: The windup, the middle and the release. The windup is slow. For right-handed throwers, you start by facing opposite the landing zone. You torque your body to the right, creating separation between your shoulder, hand and hip, with your right hip moving ahead of your right shoulder. That creates a pull, generating more speed and power as you bring your right leg around to plant your right foot in the center of the circle. Your arms should be in a T shape. You pivot on your right toe (Adrianna explained the pivot as like "squishing a bug"), then you swing your left leg around and throw your right arm out, releasing the disc by rotating your fingers to the right. Your middle finger should be your last contact with the disc.

Adrianna described the tempo of the throw this way: "It's boom [pause] boom boom."

At the point of release, some competitors scream or grunt. Adrianna remains silent.

To prepare for my lesson, I watched videos of discus throws. Then I went to a park with some old Corelle dinner plates my brother gave me and hurled those.

Watching Adrianna throw, after watching videos and trying to mimic the motions at the park, was like seeing a piece of art live. The windup and throw are beautiful things, and even the arc of the disc in the air has a wonder to it.

It was my turn. My teacher was patient and encouraging, answering all my questions. My final throw went about 45 feet, but Adrianna said, "Go ahead and call it 50."

What a swell kid.