Air Force Academy – Dana Pounds calls herself “a little meathead,” a smirking reference to her muscular but diminutive build that would seem a hindrance in her quest to become a world-class javelin thrower.
“I’m obviously not the typical javelin thrower,” the 5-foot-2 Pounds said, “because I’m not the typical anything.”
She is good at flinging the spear, though.
“She may be considered the Muggsy Bogues of javelin throwers,” said her coach, Air Force assistant Scott Irving.
Two years after picking up a javelin for the first time, Pounds won the 2005 NCAA title, and two weeks ago she successfully defended it. Tonight she goes into the U.S. Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis with the second-best qualifying mark in the country, trailing only American record-holder Kim Kreiner, who stands 5-foot-9.
A recent Air Force graduate, Pounds has been accepted into the Air Force World Class Athlete Program, meaning her sole mission for the next two years is to train for the Beijing Olympics.
“I’m totally stoked,” said Pounds, who grew up in Lexington, Ky. “I’ve never done any international travel, so these next two years are going to get my feet wet for that. Being a little southern girl from Kentucky, we never got out much.
“I’m really looking forward to the opportunities the Air Force has given me.”
Pounds won the Kentucky high school discus title for small schools when she was a freshman and the shot put title as a sophomore. She spent her next two school years in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., winning small-school state shot and discus titles as a senior.
She was first-team all-state in basketball, softball and track her senior year. Air Force recruited her to play basketball, but that didn’t go so well.
“I was frustrated with the system,” Pounds said. “Coach (Ardie) McInelly, I didn’t really agree with her coaching style. I was a different player than what she wanted me to be on the court. I thought I could play at the Division I level, but I also had an attitude, thinking, ‘I made it here, give me a chance.’ God really humbled me and said, ‘This isn’t where you’re at right now. You’re here for track.”‘
The spring of her freshman year, on a lark, Pounds threw the javelin for the first time. She liked it, but mastery didn’t come easily.
“When she first picked it up as a freshman, man, it was like slice, hook, slice, hook,” Irving said. “She couldn’t throw it straight to save herself. I still felt, you could see it, she had the potential to be an NCAA All-American.”
The next September she decided to quit basketball and concentrate on the javelin, earning All-America honors as a sophomore and finishing sixth at the Olympic trials.
She went to the 2005 NCAAs with the best qualifying throw in the country and prevailed there to finish the season undefeated against collegiate competition, but she was beaten twice in the first three meets this year. Track & Field News listed her No. 2 on its pre-NCAA form chart behind Oregon freshman Rachel Yurkovich, and Pounds didn’t like it.
“My roommate got me an Oregon track and field shirt,” Pounds said. “Anytime we didn’t have any administration coming out to practice and not a lot of the team was here, I’d wear my Oregon track and field shirt as a little motivation.”
Pounds won with a heave of 190 feet, 3 inches – a winning margin of nearly 12 feet – to become the first AFA cadet to win back-to-back Division I NCAA titles.
Now she gets to train full time. She will be based out of Peterson Air Force Base but may spend some time training in Kentucky with her father, a strength and conditioning trainer.
“I’m thankful to be in this position,” Pounds says. “There’s a whole lot of people who would love to be in my shoes. My brother’s a pilot (in the Air Force), and pilots think they have the best job, but I have the best job in the Air Force right now.”
