Throwing it down
Former Uconn track walk-on from West Hartford wins 2nd Big East hammer title
STORRS — When Chris Keegan was a freshman at Hall High School, he watched a volunteer assistant track coach pick up a discus and casually throw it.
“He dropped a bomb, a 150 or 160 [feet], a standing throw in running shoes, not even trying and I was like, ‘I want to do that, that’s awesome. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,’ ” Keegan said. “From then on, I wanted to keep throwing.”
Keegan, of West Hartford, kept throwing. He’s now a graduate student in education at Uconn and won his second Big East hammer throw title on his last throw (59.22 meters or 194 feet, 3 inches) Friday morning at the Big East track and field championships.
“Today was crazy — winning it on Round 6,” he said. “I was in second the entire competition until the last throw, which was probably one of the most stressful throws of my life. My Round 5 was not a very good throw. I was like, ‘OK, I know what I need to do, I need to put it together.’ I was coming in ranked third in the conference and thinking, ‘I’m in second right now. I’m not losing this at home.’ ”
After Friday’s events, the
Uconn men held a commanding lead in team scoring with 101.5 points and the women were also leading with 72 points, with Villanova close behind with 59. The championships will continue Saturday at Uconn’s George J. Sherman Family Complex.
Keegan, who also won the Big East indoor track weight throw title this year, was a walk-on to the team as a sophomore. He was a shot put and discus thrower at Hall High but didn’t throw the hammer until the CIAC hammer throw championships at the end of his senior year. He didn’t make the finals, but something about the event intrigued him.
“I wasn’t even really a great shot putter or discus thrower [in high school],” he said. “I worked really hard at it, which is why I was able to get college attention because they saw how much I’d grown over my high school career, so they thought maybe this guy can turn into something as a college athlete, and that’s what ended up happening.”
He went to Sacred Heart for a year, then transferred to Uconn, where he decided to specialize in the hammer and weight throw.
“With my background in Olympic weightlifting — it was a natural event for me,” he said. “I came in as a walk-on. I had to try out. They picked me up for the fall training squad to see how I could progress. My sophomore year, I narrowly missed the final in the AAC championships. That was a big motivator. I wanted to come back and prove I could score points.”
He kept improving his junior year, then COVID-19 shut down college sports. Uconn didn’t have an indoor season last year but the Huskies had an outdoor season and Keegan won his first Big East title.
Friday, he threw just under his season’s best (59.55 meters). His personal best throw is 63 meters, from last year, but this semester, he was student teaching and that took up a lot of time.
“It’s been a lot of hard work and long nights but it’s been absolutely worth it,” he said.
Now Keegan will wait to see if he makes the NCAA regionals. He is No. 59 on the list, and only 48 will go so it might be a long shot unless 11 competitors drop out.
But he’s happy with his college career if it ends this weekend.
“Not bad for a walk-on,” he said.
Snyder wins pole vault: Uconn junior Travis Snyder, who won the collegiate title at the Penn Relays, defended his Big East pole vault title Friday with a vault of 5.15 meters (16 feet, 10-¾ inches). “I’ve had a decent season,” said Snyder, who is from Saco, Maine. “Kind of a rough start. We train really hard to peak at the end of the season. It’s coming along.” ... Other Uconn winners were Mikyla Rodgers in the hammer throw (60.22 meters), Colin Winkler ( javelin, 65.48 meters), Emma Chee (pole vault, 4.15 meters), Richmond Kwaateng (long jump, 7.42 meters), Daniel Claxton (high jump, 2.12 meters) and Mia Nahom set a conference record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (9:52.81).