He is just two years into his high school career, but it looks like Brendan Duncan has this thing down.
The Waterloo sophomore chucked the discus a record 170 feet, nine inches in the preliminaries Friday and the throw held up through the finals a day later, handing Duncan the Illinois crown at the IHSA Class 2A state track and field championships on Saturday in Charleston.
“It feels amazing,” Duncan said. “I couldn’t stop smiling. Everybody was shaking my hand and it was a great feeling. I was excited, but I’m not sure how emotional I got. I jumped a little bit. I was happy.”
Duncan was in the fourth preliminary flight with the guy who had the greatest chance to overthrow him, but the best toss by Springfield Lanphier’s Kevin Farley on Friday landed two feet short of Duncan’s.
Though he was in pole position, Duncan hadn’t cleared the bar yet. There was another day to go.
“I was hoping it would (hold up), but I knew that Farley had thrown over 170 in the regular season,” Duncan said. “So I wasn’t sure.”
Duncan didn’t improve on his first-day total, but his three Saturday tosses were all between 165 and 168 feet, which would have been good enough most days.
Farley, on the other hand, did improve – just not enough. Lanphier’s top dog fell an inch short of shouldering Duncan off the top row of the podium.
The gold was coming back to Waterloo.
“They were all really good throws, my best of the season,” Duncan said. “I just didn’t get quite up to 170 again.”
Duncan also made it to the state finals as a freshman, but fell less than a foot short from making it to Saturday in 2010. He said that he was disappointed in that, and in the fact that he didn’t throw his best of the season the way he did this year, on the biggest stage.
But as the medal-winning performance this weekend proves, Duncan is a pretty unflappable guy.
“(Nerves) might have played a part in it last year, but I wasn’t too good in my form then, either,” Duncan said. “I wasn’t too consistent.”
Duncan got going in the sport in sixth grade, which is a pretty typical starting point for a lot of track athletes. In most other sports, kids are hitting kindergarten and their first practices around the same time, but the late start hasn’t seemed to hurt Duncan at all.
There was just something about that stone frisbee that appealed to Waterloo’s wunderkind.
“I don’t even know why I got started,” Duncan said. “I am athletic and I like to play sports, so I figured I would try out. I didn’t really want to run any, so I tried shot and discus. I liked it and I ended up being pretty good at it.”
Duncan’s state glory came at just the right time for head track coach Kevin Dooley. After 30 years at the helm, guiding one generation of Bulldogs after another around the oval, Dooley is stepping down to spend more time with his family.
The coach couldn’t bear to watch the results pour in on his star pupil’s final throws, but his final shot at state gold was a bull’s-eye.
“He was pretty happy and was getting emotional,” Duncan said. “He talked to me Saturday right after I got the award and he told me he didn’t want to know who won until we got up on the awards stand because he wanted to be surprised.
“He was really happy. He said he wanted to go out with a bang and that was it. He is always trying to build me up and was always encouraging.”
After reaching the pinnacle of his discipline so early in his career, Duncan could be in some danger of overconfidence once next spring rolls around.
That shouldn’t be a problem, though. After all, Duncan is not known for getting too emotional. He might jump a little, but then it will be back to business.
“I have been trying to stay humble through the whole thing,” Duncan said. “I’m not trying to get big-headed about it. It is amazing to win state at all, any year, and I’m pretty happy about it this year.
“I was pretty amazed I could do it as a sophomore. Coming in, I didn’t expect to get first.”
