By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
One short year after wrapping up an All-Mid-American Conference softball career, Kent State’s Kim Hamilton is closing in on All-American status in an entirely different sport.
Her story is not too different from that of former Duke basketball star Greg Paulus, who will attempt to make the jump from college basketball point guard with the Blue Devils to college quarterback at Syracuse University this fall.
But while there has been some national debate regarding Paulus’ chances for success, Hamilton has quietly excelled in a return to her No. 2 sport from her high school days in Cave Junction, Oregon.
Despite only eight months of training in how to throw the javelin at the college level, Hamilton will represent Kent State in the event next week at the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark.
“After my last college softball season ended, I started to think about something to do for my fifth year of school,” said Hamilton, who is finishing a Master’s degree in sports management. “I was torn between volleyball and track.”
A summer playing professional softball with the Akron Racers cut into the time needed to prepare for volleyball, leading Hamilton to meet with KSU track and field coach Bill Lawson.
“Someone mentioned to coach Lawson what I had done in high school, and within five minutes he sat down with me,” said Hamilton. “Within the next 15 minutes, I had committed to going to practice.”
Lawson called the meeting, which took place just around the Thanksgiving holiday, “an early Christmas present.”
“She was going into grad school and thought she might like to pick up where she left off with the javelin in high school,” said Lawson. “We were able to help her a little, and she helped us ... winning a MAC chamiponship and finishing in the top three (last week at the NCAA Mid-East Regional in Louisville), which is the toughest throwing regionals in the country.”
Hamilton’s best throw in Louisville came on her third heave — a 50.19-meter mark that just shy of her career best (50.27).
Qualifying for the NCAA championship was the result of eight months of hard work with KSU throws coach Nathan Fanger. And the hard work is far from over.
“The throwing motion for a softball is kind of the same, and I can end up getting into trouble with the muscle memory,” said Hamilton. “When I was in high school, I would go into a full spring, then crow-hop like I would in the outfield in softball, and then throw. Coach Fanger had to break me down from the ground up.
“The good thing is I have a short learning curve. I pick things up fairly quickly. But I still basically have 20 years of softball versus eight months of track in muscle memory.”
In their 10 days between returning from Louisville and leaving for Fayetteville, Fanger and Hamilton have dedicated themselves to continuing to refining Hamilton’s throwing motion. Her new task is learning how to “throw through the tip.”
“When she throws, she has a tendency to finish high with her hand, and the body kind of stops,” said Lawson. “Coach Fanger is working with her on moving her body through the entire throw, which is something you don’t see from softball players throwing the ball in from the outfield.
“She has those 20 years of softball ingrained in her body, and now she is trying to re-make that. She is really just an infant in training to throw the javelin, but for her to have already had this amount of success, the potential is obviously there for her to have even greater success. I think she could still put another 20 to 25-feet into her throw.”
Those distances could come if Hamilton dedicates herself to the javelin for another three years with an eye towards making the 2012 Olympic trials — a dream she says she has not ruled out, and a goal Lawson believes is well within her reach.
“I don’t want to put pressure on her,” Lawson said. “But if she wants to dedicate her life to it for the next three years, she has a great opportunity to be in the mix with the great javelin throwers in the nation.”
For now, Lawson would simply like to see Hamilton finish in the top 12 in Wednesday’s NCAA championship qualifiers.
“That gets her through to the finals, and in the finals anything can happen,” said Lawson. “If she can then finish in the top eight and stand on the podium with the other (All-Americans), it would bring a great college career to a Cinderella ending.”
If Hamilton writes that perfect final chapter to her Kent State career, “nobody who knows her would be a bit surprised,” said Kent State softball coach Karen Linder.
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David Carducci can be reached at dcarducci@recordpub.com