Rivals Throw Conventional Ugliness Aside

Try to picture how an arrangement like this would work in another sport, with another combination.

Picture, say, Chad Eaton and Billy Joe Hobart as roommates. OK, take cover first and then picture it.

Or picture Timm Rosenbach and Chris Chandler. Or Mario Bailey and Torey Hunter. Or Paul Sorensen and anyone in a purple shirt.

We’re not just talking Oscar and Felix. We’re talking nuclear and holocaust.

Cougars and Huskies have made it to the altar before, and through assorted Apple Cups thereafter without involving the lawyers. They work side-by-side in offices across the state with no calamitously negative spikes to the profit margin. They can be invited to the same cocktail parties without the host having to establish a DMZ before the hors d’oeuvres are served.

They can, indeed, all just get along, most common alums of Washington State and the University of Washington.

But if you’ve put on the uniform and actually done battle head-to-head, can you then toss that uniform aside and really live with - well, with one of them?

This is what WSU’s Ian Waltz and UW’s Ben Lindsey will find out.

They are the best combination shot-and-discus throwers their respective schools have ever produced, and for three years now have competed against each other three, four, maybe five times a year. And after graduation this spring and a summer to make a run at spots on the U.S. Olympic team, they will move to Tucson in September to live and train together in what would seem to be an experiment in the combustible tradition of high school chemistry.

We’re talking 550 pounds of collective Coug and Husky here. We’re talking one refrigerator and one TV clicker. We’re talking regular access to blunt, heavy metal objects. “I think it’s going to work out great,” said Waltz.

Isn’t that what the iceberg said about the Titanic?

We’re in a joking mood about this because it’s pretty much a joking matter. Rarely have two rivals found common ground so firm as Waltz and Lindsey, who went round-and-round again in the throwing rings at Mooberry Track on Saturday in WSU’s annual dual meet against the Huskies.

Waltz got the better of his man in the discus, throwing 194 feet, 11 inches to Lindsey’s 187-5. Lindsey returned the favor in the shot, beating Waltz by almost 17 inches with a throw of 62-6-3/4 - though Idaho’s Joachim Olsen upstaged that duel by winning the event with a 62-9-1/2 effort.

They will do it again at the Pacific-10 Conference championships in May and the NCAAs the following month and the Olympic Trials in July, and wherever the implements fall there will be fun close by.

“That’s what makes it so special,” said Waltz. “A lot of the guys who compete get so fired up, so serious. We like to joke around. I think if you concentrate on something too much, you wind up trying too hard and psyching yourself out. Even during high school, I liked to joke around between throws.

“If you can’t have fun with it, it’s really not worth doing.”

It was at this point in the conversation that Lindsey aimed his camera at Waltz and said, “You’re my hero.”

So you can imagine that Saturday’s throwing venues were noticeably free of the grunting and stomping which usually punctuate the weightman’s workday. Strong as they are, Waltz and Lindsey are far more interested in technique and fellowship than theatrics, and you can throw Olsen in that category, as well.

“I consider him a friend of mine,” Olsen said of Waltz. “Maybe it would be easier to compete against him if he was a bastard - but he’s a really nice guy and I always hope he does well. But I never want to lose to anyone. And the same goes for Ben, too.”

Olsen is relatively new to this relationship, having just arrived at Idaho from his native Denmark last year. Waltz and Lindsey have been bumping into each other at meets since high school - though they had to go a ways to bump, what with Waltz growing up in Post Falls and Lindsey in Lynnwood.

As a result, they’ve had time to discover shared interests, goals and motivations. From the beginning, there was one obvious bond: Both turned their back on football to revel in the joys of pushing tin.

It was definitely football’s loss. Waltz was an all-state defensive end at Post Falls. Lindsey - who stands 6-6 - drew recruiting interest from Nebraska and Notre Dame, as well as an intense push from UW until he phoned Husky throws coach Ken Shannon with the news that he would do track and track only.

“It was just something I loved,” he said. “I like being in control of what happens to me, of being able to measure myself by the numbers and not having somebody say you’re doing well or not.”

Beyond that, however, what makes them think they’ll be compatible roommates?

“Well, we’re both clean freaks,” offered Waltz.

Great. Imagine Monica Geller doing 600-pound squats.

The Tucson idea began percolating almost two years ago, and recently they received the blessing of University of Arizona throws coach Mike Maynard, who will tutor them in their post-collegiate ambitions.

“This is an important year - an Olympic year,” said Lindsey, “but there are a lot of great older throwers out there. I want to be the best I can be this year and compete and try and make the team, but I’m really focusing on the year after that and the future.”

For the moment, the future includes both throws for both throwers - though in the big, bad world of international track and field, it’s the rare man who can excel at both.

Waltz, who has pushed WSU’s school record to 211-5 in the discus, would seem to have the brighter future in that endeavor - though Lindsey thinks his friend would make significant gains on his 63-9-3/4 shot best if he switched from the traditional glide technique to the rotation. Lindsey’s shot best is 65-4 - better, really, than his 202-7 discus. Waltz has won a pair of Pac-10 titles, both coming his sophomore year; Lindsey is still searching for his first, and both are down to their last chances for NCAA gold.

You’d assume, then, that things might grow a little more tense in May than they were in a low-key dual on April Fool’s Day.

“Track is a unique sport, and especially in the field events,” Lindsey demurred. “It’s not like a head-to-head race. You try not to channel your energy toward another person, but toward yourself.

“What makes it hard with this meet is that the Huskies and Cougars are such big rivals, and everyone takes that rivalry differently. Personally, I’m friends with a lot of people on WSU’s team. I want to win as badly as anyone, but I want everyone to do well during that process.”

Not everyone did well Saturday. UW’s men hung a 106-57 pasting on the Cougars, WSU’s worst loss in the series in 77 years.

Yet it’s not that kind of number Lindsey - or Waltz - will measure himself by.

“Track is different than any other sport,” Lindsey said. “I have friends from all over the country at different schools, working hard to be the best they can be. Sure, they want to beat you and you want to beat them - but in between you call each other up and see you they’re doing. It’s neat.

“I guess at the pinnacle of the sport, we’re all going to be teammates anyway.”