THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 27, 1995 TAG: 9507270517
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
You don't hear much about the javelin. On those rare occasions that one lands in the news, it invariably has the blood of some meet official or athlete on it. And school officials have one more reason to give the event the heave.
Largely because of the potential for serious injury, the number of states that offer the javelin to high school athletes is down to 12, with New Jersey, where two people were hit this year, expected to soon make it 11. Virginia high schools dropped the event long ago. But South Hampton Roads is home to two of the nation's top throwers, one a veteran and one a newcomer.
Garrett Noel, 25, is a former All-American from Cal State-Northridge. He moved to Virginia Beach to train with his father, an executive at Home Quarters, for the 1996 Olympics. He's been throwing the javelin more than half his life, since he was 12.
Brian Kollar, a 15-year-old sophomore at First Colonial High, has been throwing for a year. But he already has one national championship and will be competing for another today at the USA Track and Field junior olympics in San Jose, Calif.
They've met just a couple times, but Noel is as excited about passing the spear to Kollar as Kollar is about receiving it.
Throwing the javelin, you see, can be a lonely pursuit, especially in this country. In Europe, the javelin gets more respect. In Finland, it's the national sport. At festivals, whole families aerate the soil with technically-correct tosses.
And that's no small feat, considering the javelin is a pain to throw - often literally - and takes years to master. But when thrown properly it is majestic in flight, seemingly jet-propelled as it cuts the air, its tail flickering behind it like the exhaust flames that dance behind a dragster.
``When you throw a perfect throw, it'll feel just like you're throwing air,'' Kollar says.
Kollar has unleashed a number of nice throws. He won the USATF national championship last year, competing in the 13-14 age group, and was second in the same category at the national AAU meet.
Kollar's father, Jim, coaches shot put and discus at First Colonial, and his older sister, Jamie, was a standout in both events at FC.
Brian Kollar throws the shot and discus as well. One day, he picked up an old javelin that his father had and tossed it at a nearby elementary school.
``Of all the things he's ever done, it looked the most natural,'' Jim Kollar said. ``It just looked right.''
Brian and Jim became students of the event, and Brian caught on quickly. He threw the javelin about 100 feet the first time he picked it up and was in the 160-foot range within a couple months - enough to win the USATF title.
After turning 15, Kollar moved up to a heavier javelin, from 600 grams to 800 grams. He thought he might throw it about 140 feet. Instead, he debuted at 160 and has been moving up since.
Kollar, 6-foot-2 and 170 pounds, threw 173 feet at a regional USATF meet in North Carolina two weeks ago. He topped that by going 175 feet at the East Coast Invitational in Bethesda, Md., last week, a toss that won the age 17-18 category as well. Another throw like that would probably win him his second national crown today.
``Right now he's just throwing on natural ability. His technique is very raw,'' Noel said. ``But he's about 5 feet farther than I was at his age.''
Kollar is hoping to parlay his talent into a college scholarship. Several schools have already taken notice and told him he could have a future as a decathalete.
The Kollars credit Noel and his father, Alan, with adding distance to Brian's throws during the one workout they had together last month.
Jim Kollar, a veterinarian, has studied tapes of javelin throwers and works with Brian on his form. But Kollar was aware that he only knew so much.
For that reason, Jim Kollar did a double take one morning while driving down Little Neck Road. There, in the traffic ahead of him, was a car with the vanity plate JAVLN 96.
Kollar began tailing the car before losing it in traffic. But a few days later, a friend of Kollar's told him about a bartender at Chili's restaurant who said he threw the javelin.
Kollar stopped by one night and introduced himself to Garrett Noel. He and Brian went to watch Noel work out soon after.
Noel and his coach/father - owner of the JAVL 96 tag - showed Brian and Jim Kollar a technique called ``the block.'' In it, a thrower plants his left leg and stops dead after his approach, then locks and turns his hips and releases the javelin.
``The power goes up your body into your arm,'' Noel said. ``It roughs up your body pretty good. There's nothing natural about it.''
Noel, 6-2 and 230 pounds, trains four or five hours a day before heading to his new job as a waiter at Cafe Society in Virginia Beach. It's a big lifestyle change from a year ago, when he was living in Los Angeles and working as an investment banker.
``I was handling billion-dollar portfolios,'' he said. ``I'd have two phones going at the same time, trading. It was very exciting, but it was not conducive to what I wanted to do in training.''
Noel took the job after graduating from college in 1993, and continued to compete. He worked from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then went to train.
Despite the hectic schedule, Noel improved slightly on his college best. In a meet at Northern Arizona, he threw 247-8, his personal record. He finished 1994 ranked fifth in the nation.
But Noel knew that if he was going to make it to Atlanta, he'd have to change his lifestyle.
``I told myself that if I'm going to do it, I've got to do it 100 percent,'' Noel said.
That meant packing his black Porsche (with the JAV CHKR license plates) and driving 3,000 miles to Virginia Beach to rejoin his father.
``Wherever he was, I was going to go,'' Noel said.
Since moving to the Beach, Noel has dropped 20 pounds and broken down his entire javelin-throwing technique. He spent three months working on his approach alone, without throwing.
Noel and his father figured that with his old technique, Noel was never going to throw farther than 250 feet. He needs to throw at least 80 meters - or about 260 feet - to make the Olympic team.
To get there, Noel has been studying the technique of world-record-holder Jan Zelezny, a 5-foot-10 Czech who has thrown 313 feet, about 25 feet farther than his closest competitor.
``Americans have traditionally tried to muscle the javelin, to put technique second to strength, and that's wrong,'' Noel said. ``The Europeans have been doing it so long, and are so technically good at it, they put us to shame.''
Throwing the javelin well requires speed, strength, flexibility, and years of technical fine-tuning. Not many Americans can compete with the best Europeans. This year, only one American has met the Olympic qualify standard of 80 meters.
Noel himself is only about 13 feet off. It's that thought that gets him out of bed in the morning.
``It does take a lot of dedication and a lot of drive,'' he said. ``I've got to depend on myself and my dad when he's there.
``Even if I don't make it, I can say I gave 100 percent, and have no regrets.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by BILL TIERNAN, Staff
Kollar, a 15-year-old sophomore at First Colonial High, has been
throwing for a year. But he already has one national championship
and will be competing for another today at the USA Track and Field
junior olympics in San Jose, Calif. That despite the fact that
Virginia high schools dropped the event long ago.
Noel, 25, is a former All-American from Cal State-Northridge. He
moved to Virginia Beach to train with his father, an executive at
Home Quarters, for the 1996 Olympics. He's been throwing the javelin
more than half his life, since he was 12.
by CNB