49 Sports Challenge: See how Dave puts his shot
6:04 p.m. Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Eric Schmidt is a 49 -year-old shot putter who has been doing this field event since before I was even born.
"I was a skinny junior high kid and you want to be taken seriously if you are a young guy, so I got into weights to build myself up for football," Schmidt said. "Then I saw these guys throwing the shot putt around and I thought, wow, that's kind of a sign for strength, maybe I should try that."
He found out early in his shot putt career that you don't have to be the biggest guy to win.
"The skinny kid went out and started beating some of the bigger dudes. I thought, wow, that's kind of fun and I hung on to it because it was kind of a ego trip and I just kind of built on it from there," Schmidt said.
After high school, he became a track and field star at KU. After his college career, he decided to use his shot skills for recreation and the yearly Sunflower State Games.
"I've participated since they started in Lawrence. It's probably been about 12 years or so. I don't know how many medals I have collected," he said. "I haven't done every year but I've tried and if not too many good putters show up then I can bring home one of these."
This is one challenge I do have some experience at. I was a shot putter on my high school track team, so I do know the basics. But I don't think that will help much because I wasn't very good back then. So here's the challenge.
"Alright, Dave, we are going to take 16 pounds of steel and see how far we can launch it eastward. Farthest mark without falling out of the ring is the winner."
Sounds good, best throw out of three, right?
"Best out of three we will go with that. Let's get it on, here we go."
Our first attempts were our best throws, so here are the results.
"Eric, I think this one is pretty obvious. My throw was way up there and yours is right about here. Even though I lost, how do you think I did."
"Hey, I could see you had some skills. You just need to hit the weights a little and get out here and throw a little more often. I think you will be ready for the games," he said.
Maybe one day, I will be going against you.
"You'll be there."
So that brings the grand total to one and five in Sports Challenges this season.
Correction: The name, Eric Schmidt, was originally misspelled.
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