I remember back in high school some of our meets had the thrower 4x100m. It was always the highlight of the meet. The throwers talked so much smack to one another before the race (jokingly) and everyone always had a great time. Ocassionally, they used a banana or snickers as a baton, with the last guy being required to eat the banana/snickers at the end.
Anyone still do this? or is it too politically incorrect. Anyone else up for bring this spirit back to a high school meet?
Our team did them way back in the 90's. Never thought of using a Snickers Bar as a baton, that is an awesome idea. We had a discus thrower who was not fat at all, just very tall and long-armed. He kicked @ss as our anchor leg.
I haven't been to any HS dual meets in a couple years, only invitationals. I don't know if they still do them or not.
There was one at an invite we would go to when I was in high school (2009) and the throwers would use a pepperoni stick as the baton. You had to be >225 lbs to compete.
Now called Big Man or Throwers Relay.
fatmanrelays wrote:
Anyone still do this? or is it too politically incorrect?
Fat guys and bald guys are the last people you can make fun of without fear of repercussion.
My HS still does these.
Yeah we still do it in most of our dual meets and we call it the fat man relay. Always fun to watch. We have some big guys but dang they could move. We even stuck a couple in our actual 4x100 team a few times.
ARII wrote:
Yeah we still do it in most of our dual meets and we call it the fat man relay. Always fun to watch. We have some big guys but dang they could move. We even stuck a couple in our actual 4x100 team a few times.
Throwers are very powerful athletes. Well, the good ones are. A lot of schools just put the fat kids in the shot to give them something to do.
Always loved these. Two memories:
1) We had a meet every year that included a fat man relay. The only "eligibility" criterion was that each guy on the relay had to have been in a throwing event in the meet.
So one year we're light on throwers who can do *any* running, and I need a fourth. I grab my 6ft/142lb quartermiler and tell him he's gonna be a javelin thrower. Turns out that this has been the kid's secret dream. (Everybody on a track team seems to think that s/he can throw jav--why is that?) He gets a strong dose of reality in the javelin competition but anchors the relay to a win, against a kid (literally twice his size--or at least weight) from another school who'd been ragging on him.
2) One year (1970s) a bunch of American distance runners and throwers were on a European tour and talking smack to each other about sprint speed. So at one of the meets a special 4 x100 between the two groups was added.
The result was about what you'd expect, although the distance runners *did* complete the third pass before the throwers hit the tape.
Not much before, though.
Its called The " 4 x Ton "
we are doing one this weekend and I am in it. We use a king size baby ruth bar
and it is against the coaches our javelin coach played defensive line in high school and he ran a 4.5 40 yard dash so we are putting him in the first leg