Wed Dec 27 17:04:05 2000<br><br><br>In looking at
the effort to come up with the best of the NE it
seemed sad that the history of the Javelin was so
lacking as to require memory to establish what was.
<br><br>It was also obvious that the older throwers were
able to reconstruct a bit of the history. Since I am
for sure I'm the oldest, at least in the NE area, I
thought I might interject as to the beginning.<br><br>The
World record in 1950 was set by Matti Jarvinan at
253'41/2" on 6/18/36 mainly because throwers around the
world were only just coming away from the terrors of
World War II (August 15 1945). They first started to
reach 240' by the late 40's. <br><br>Bill Miller who
threw for Arizona State at Tempe between 48-50 (I was
in his conference) reached this level in college as
did Cy Young, Steve Seymour, Phil Conley and Bud
Held.<br><br>Although Bill was from NJ he spend most of his throwing
career on the west coast. I know since I entered every
major meet in the NE and only in 1955 at the Eastern
championship did we meet again. The previous time being in '50
where I took second (182") to his 220'+. To show the
level of throwing during this time I broke a 14 year
old Met AAU record in 1954 with 214'9.5". Up until
1955 there were no throwers in the NE over 240'. Bill
and I hit this when we competed in the '55 Eastern's
in Baltimore (he threw 241.5 to my 240'2" (p.s. he
beat me on his last throw)).<br><br>Again so you
envision the level of throwing at that time my throw was
for the year 1955 7th in the US and 25th in the
world.<br><br>Starting in '54 Bud Held developed technigue and Dick Held
in creating a better mouse trap (javelin) which lead
an explosion of increasing distances. Bud and Bill
started to break the world record reguarly. Bill Miller
threw 266'8.5" on 8/21/54 for a World Record which was
in short order broken many times in the ensuing few
years. <br><br>In 1956, Bill Alley, from NJ, threw
242'6" while AL Cantello reached 249' in 58 and later
set the World Record at 288".<br><br>Another NE
thrower, was a NY youngster I coached, who broke my Met
AAU record of 238' in, I think, 1963, with a 250'
throw but his name has passed from my memory.<br><br>In
any event the above at leasts takes you thru 1965 in
the NE. From there you have to tap the memory of
someone else to see the picture.<br><br>SK