вторник, 18 сентября 2012 г.

New spin on life ; Division III athletics finds room -; finally - for Whitworth's Joel Werdell - The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)

Here is the conversation, more or less, as Joel Werdell remembersit:

Friend: Let's do track.

Joel: Yeah. I thought I wanted to do track. But what event are wegoing to do?

Friend: I don't know.

Joel: Me neither. The hammer?

Friend: OK, we're throwing the hammer.

Joel: OK, let's go.

At Whitworth College, it is almost that easy to be a part ofsomething fun, fulfilling and uplifting - which, of course, is theway it absolutely should be.

Among the blessings we forget to count about college athletics isthat the big, bad, monolithic NCAA gets it about 40 percent right,at least.

That's the portion of its membership that is Division III, likeWhitworth. There are no athletic scholarships in Division III, nocodicils prescribing minimum attendance or arena size, no self-important million-dollar coaches and, often as not, no spectators.Just sport for sport's sake, and no other.

You know. Let's do track.

But at Whitworth, and in Joel Werdell's case, it's even betterthan that. At Whitworth, in addition to his formal education, he'sbeen set loose to discover some latent talents in a manner that'sthoroughly - to borrow one of his favorite words - random.

For instance, the hammer.

This weekend, Werdell throws it in the Northwest Conferencechampionships in Tacoma with a better-than-fair shot at winning. Hisseason best of 166 feet is about 7 behind the NWC leader, PacificLutheran's Dan Haakenson. It's also good enough to put him on thelist of provisional qualifiers for the NCAA Division IIIchampionships next month in Canton, N.Y.

If the distance doesn't seem remarkable, consider that Werdellpicked up his first hammer 14 months ago.

'I'd never seen it before,' said the senior from Edmonds. 'Ididn't even go out for track until last year.'

And what took him so long?

Here's where it gets good. Here's where it gets, well, Whitworth.

'I thought I was going to do football and baseball here, but thatkind of fell through,' he said. 'In fact, I got cut twice inbaseball.'

His football ambitions, he said, were ended by concussions. Hisbaseball ambitions, apparently, were cut short by limited ability,though like any true competitor he respectfully disputed the finaljudgment.

Over at Boppell Track, however, coach Toby Schwarz has theultimate open-door policy - though he allowed that even he was waryin this case. Werdell had no previous track experience and didn'tturn out until February last year, because of a January trip toHawaii. Schwarz wondered just how serious his new thrower was - and,of course, no coach fancies his program as a repository for culls.

'But he's a great kid and he works hard,' Schwarz said. 'Do youreally need anything more than that?'

It doesn't hurt to have a tutor like Matt Shaffer, the formerWashington State All-American who can still crank the ball and chainout to 195 feet himself. Still, Werdell couldn't help but wonder,'How do you teach somebody who's never done anything before?

'When you start, the ball just pulls you all over the place. Youfall down and it's embarrassing. You feel like such a klutz.'

But Shaffer's expert help and Werdell's own initiative - heworked out on his own all summer - resulted in a 30-foot improvementthis spring.

'I guess I was bound and determined to do something athletic incollege,' he said. 'I love to compete and I love being part of thisteam. Just being around these people is a cool opportunity.

'And what I like about track is that you can put as much into itas you want and a coach can't hold you back. What you can do isreally all up to you.'

Which is a segue as good as any to the flip side of Werdell'sWhitworth experience.

Somewhere between getting cut from baseball and taking a flyer onthe hammer, Werdell wound up in a band. He and Travis Stolcis - thefriend who talked him into track - lived in Warren Hall freshman andsophomore year. Stolcis and Tyler Kumakura began playing guitartogether informally that second year, and with Werdell drumming onthe djimbe, they performed at a fall barbecue. Soon, drummer KyleGilliam (who also throws the discus) and bassist Charlie Shepherdjoined, and the band which has come to be known as Sittser was born.

In the two years since, the group has recorded two CDs - financedby what you might call on-faith presales around campus. Once asolely acoustic group, they've added electric guitar, violin andsax, and Werdell himself has branched out on keyboards, for a soundthat doesn't defy categorization as much as make it irrelevant.They're a Christian band, yes, but no one gets clubbed over the headwith the word.

'I guess if anything,' Werdell said, 'we'd just like our music togive people a hope.'

Themselves, too. They've recently acquired some management andlater this month will open for the popular Christian band Deliriousat shows in Pullman and the Tri-Cities. They'd like to do someserious booking, but one band member is just a junior and Werdell -who will graduate next month in physics and computer science but hasathletic eligibility remaining - wants to return to pursue hishammer muse.

Sittser? Well, that's a good Whitworth story, too. Seems thegroup had a naming party at their dorm when someone came up with the'Jerry Sittser Orchestra' - double wordplay on the noted swing bandThe Brian Setzer Orchestra and popular Whitworth professor JerrySittser. It was a joke until Shepherd blurted it out at their nextgig when the emcee demanded a name.

The professor is cool with the tribute. He's had the band over tohis house for dinner and, said Werdell, has helped settle a fewintraband issues. But he gets no royalties or merchandising rights.

That would probably be more of a Division I thing, anyway, than aDivision III thing.