Catharine Kendall Emerald
Morrison is learning to implement the many intricate techniques of the hammer.
Hammer
continued from page 7A
cus. But she persevered and made
an appearance in the Pacific-10
Conference Championships.
And in the meantime, she
threw the hammer, oh, five times
that year.
The ankles were worse the next
season and would require more
than one surgery. The rugged,
grinding nature of the discus
made it so painful that Mo began
to experiment more with the ham
mer.
That sophomore season she fin
ished seventh in the Pac-10 in the
hammer (168-4) and sixth in the
discus (166-9).
“Mo is a neophyte,” Harmon
says. “She didn’t really pick up
the hammer until her sophomore
year, when she was in atrocious
pain trying to learn a new event.”
She spent what was supposed
to be her junior season unhappily
watching the meets with fellow
redshirting junior Karis Howell,
the Ducks’ top javelin thrower.
The two were able to comfort
each other. And Mo promised
herself that she’d make the rest of
her career special.
“It was really tough,” Mo says.
“I’d go to meets and bawl, go
home so upset. [But] It was defi
nitely motivational, it made me
think, ‘I have two years left, so I
better make something of it.’”
This is what, besides breaking
records, Oregon’s finest hammer
thrower is doing with her come
back season:
Being a big sis.
“We have ‘little sisters’ on the
team now,” Mo explains. “It
would have been nice to have as a
freshman, to have someone tell
you what you should expect.
“[This year’s freshmen] are all
very innocent. I don’t remember
being that innocent when I got
here. But they’re like my little sis
ters, really. They’re so crazy,
they’re so energetic, they’re so hy
per.”
Mary Etter, one of those oh-so
innocents, clearly appreciates
Mo’s presence on the team.
“Mo’s the biggest punk,” Etter
joked after the discus competition
April 22. “Sometimes I just want
to beat her down — no, I love her
to death. She’s great.”
But it doesn’t stop there. This is
what else Oregon’s top hammer
thrower has been doing:
Improving her natural rhythm.
Trying to implement all the intri
cacies of the hammer. And learn
ing the event with Harmon, who
was the Ducks’ first individual
national champion in 1981— in
the javelin.
“The whole principle is to get
this little mass to rotate faster and
faster around you,” Harmon elu
cidates. “If you throw a little extra
movement in, it shortens the line
of power, the path of the ball and
how fast it can gyrate. It’s a con
stant dance, like a polka in a way,
something’s always flying out and
coming back in ... it may look
graceful but there are some kines
thetic demands on your middle
ear as centrifugal forces pull you
out...”
Or as Mo, a biology/psychology
student, puts it: “A four-turn,
four-beat, heel-toe spin.”
And Mo’s still persisting. Even
after she missed practice for the
entire week preceding last Satur
day’s dual to go home and deal
with a family crisis.
“I called Sally that Thursday,”
Mo says. “And I asked her, ‘Will I
be able to compete, because I
know I’ve been gone and it won’t
be fair to other people to take off a
week and come back?’ And she
said, ‘We need the points.’ So I
knew I needed to get my ass in
gear.”
She set the latest record. And
she placed second in the discus.
She’s also still enduring the
pains in her ankles.
“It’s going to be her Achilles
heel for life,” Harmon says. “But
it’s also going to be the thing that
she draws her strength from.”
Coach Harmon and her star
thrower are very much on the
same page.
“I don’t ever think I’ve had a
clear-sailing year,” Mo says.
“There’s always been a couple of
things. But that’s what makes you
work harder. Not only does it
make your accomplishments
seem greater, but it gives you bet
ter self-esteem when you can
overcome and still come out look
ing pretty OK, not too dirty.”
Chances are, she’ll do just that
starting at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
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