Fort Collins – On paper, Loree Smith is the favorite in the NCAA women’s hammer throw. The Colorado State senior holds the top seed heading into the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif., which start today. She leads her closest competition, Georgia’s Jenny Dahlgren, by nearly 10 feet.
To win CSU’s first individual title in four years, however, she’ll have to live up to expectations in the championship meet, something she was unable to do a year ago.
Smith turned in the best mark by a U.S. collegian when she threw the hammer 70.03 meters (229 feet, 9 inches) to win the Mountain West Conference championships in May. The previous best was 69.94 (229-5), accomplished by Candice Scott’s ninth-place finish in the 2004 Olympics competing for Trinidad and Tobago. Scott, the defending NCAA champion, recently quit competing for the University of Florida.
“I kind of would like to compete against her for the national championship,” Smith said. “It would mean more to me to beat her. But now that I’ve broken her all-time best college record, it says a little more about me deserving the championship.”
Actually, the NCAA doesn’t keep track and field records. There are school and meet records, while all-time bests are compiled by outside agencies.
The departures of Scott and other weight throwers followed the abrupt resignation of their coach, Larry Judge, who left Wyoming a few years ago under mysterious circumstances as well.
Smith gets a chance against Scott in August at the world championships in Helsinki, Finland. Smith’s 70-meter MWC win qualified her for the top international meet. She’s currently 22nd in the world.
“She’s probably a once-in- a-lifetime athlete as far as how far she’s come,” Rams throwing coach Brian Bedard said of Smith’s humble origins at tiny Julesburg High School, in the far northeast corner of the state. “It would be nice (if she wins). She’s earned it. She’s got the talent. We have athletes who have talent but don’t have the work ethic, or have work ethic and passion but not talent. She has all of it.”
She also has her degree, but skipped graduation to participate in the MWC meet.
“Breaking the collegiate record and qualifying for the world championships is worth not wearing the funny hat,” she said.
Smith has earned All-America honors five times in indoor and outdoor track, though she has battled a stress fracture in her leg for two seasons. She faces surgery or six months of immobilization after the worlds. The injury forced her to abandon the discus and shot put except during the MWC meet. Smith won both events with little practice and set meet records in the process.
The Rams needed the points and she agreed to risk further aggravating her leg injury, but the Rams fell short of BYU.
“There were a lot of amazing performances,” she said. “There were a few people who let their team down.”
Smith chose not to enter the regional meet in the discus and shot.
“If I were greedy, she could have done all three but she’d be in a cast,” Bedard said.
“I was hurting really bad after conference,” said Smith, one of seven Rams to qualify for the NCAAs. “I’m trying to win a national championship. I wasn’t going to jeopardize it for a few points at regional.”
She won the hammer at the regional meet with a throw of 217-8.
A year ago Smith went into the NCAA championships ranked third with a 220-foot early-season effort, only to finish sixth with a best of 208-4.
“My technique fell away,” she said of her late-season struggle. “I wasn’t sure how it happened. I tried to recreate the technique, and at one point I struggled to break 200. My 209 was on the way up from a terrible midseason.”
She waited until midway through this spring to better her 220-foot personal best. She opened the MWC meet with a 225-foot result.
“I knew after I hit that one I was going to hit 70 meters that day. The difference between a 206 throw and a 230 throw is very little. It’s inches in the ring but meters on the field. I had the meet (won), but I was going after something bigger.”
Hammer throwers build up velocity with a dizzying rotation before releasing a U-shaped handle holding a wire leash and metal ball.
Smith is aiming for 230 feet at the NCAA, but the big prize is becoming CSU’s first individual NCAA outdoor track champion since Bryan Berryhill’s 1,500-meter men’s crown in 2001.
Unlike Berryhill, she’s not expecting a big shoe contract.
“(Our) only fans are family and throwers, and former throwers. It’s a pretty exclusive crowd,” she said. “Anyone can pick up a pair of shoes and call themselves a runner.”
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
