The Oldfield Spin

            Life is too short not to be strong.

            I decided that early on and started lifting weights in 7^th grade, after I saw the late Steve Reeves in the movie, “Hercules.” Hercules was the ancient superhero who killed the nine-headed Hydra, captured the dog Cerberus, cleaned the Aegean stables, and performed other uncommon chores. After cleaning things up and making the world safe for democracy, Hercules started the Olympics, according to Greek mythology.

            Reeves had been Mr. Universe and parlayed it into films.  I thought he was cool and heroic and I wanted to be like Hercules and slay the Hydra, capture the guard dog of Hades and clean my room. And get the girl. So my dad bought me a Healthways 160 pound barbell set for Christmas and I started lifting in the basement but could barely pick up the full set. My dad would go down and curl the whole thing for a set of 10. Right then I figured I would never be able to beat his ass.  He never lifted weights. He was just a big, strong construction worker.  

            Those were the very humble beginnings of The Formula, which I used to build an interesting if not very profitable career in the athletic world. If you use The Formula, you can get faster, stronger, bigger, be more than you thought you could be, and never have sand kicked in your face at the beach. It won’t guarantee you a spot at the Olympics, but it might get you a spot on the varsity squad — track and field, football, soccer, tennis, badminton, whatever — and then you might be able to parlay that into a scholarship.

            If you’re past that age, and just want to be a weekend warrior, The Formula will help you make friends and influence people. You’ll look good on the beach, at the gym or in the office.

            The Formula was confirmed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom I met at the Gold‘s Gym in Venice Beach back in 1980.  In his early 30s then, he had retired from bodybuilding competition, but would make a dramatic comeback that year to win the Mr. Olympia title for a 7^th time. He also was preparing to run for governor of California through his role in “Conan the Barbarian,” the film that made him a household name in 1982. He was already training for that film, taking sword fighting and acting lessons and learning how to emote.   

            I was training for the Olympics, having been re-instated back to amateur status following a court battle with the U.S. Olympic Committee.  Arnold and I just happened to run into each other at the gym and struck up a friendship of sorts and a mutual admiration society. Oddly enough, the Terminator also started out admiring Steve Reeves in his role as Hercules, so we had a common film hero.  And we were both seeking perfect pumpitude. He was more buffed than I was, but I was stronger.   

            When he told me he was going to write a book on bodybuilding and would include a chapter on bodybuilding for competitive athletes, I told him I was going to write a book and would include a chapter on him. That was 30 years ago and I’ve finally got around to the book and Arnold’s chapter. This is part of it.

            I remember he said he admired that I used weight training to enhance my athletic performance, rather than to just enhance my appearance. Body building for sports was how he referred to it in his book and said it was great to have that sort of objective.  He put my name in there, too, and I don’t know that I ever thanked him for that. 

            Body building is a cosmetic pursuit, and Arnold used it to get bigger, stronger and prettier. I used it to get bigger, stronger, faster and more gnarly. Looking back, I think we were both in the business of setting a new blueprint for the modern male, Arnold on the pages of health and beauty, me in the pages of Sports Illustrated and Track & Field News.  

            The Formula is a combination of strength training, endurance, flexibility, speed work and feasibility. Feasibility because there are always limits. If you are a 100 pound woman, the laws of biomechanics say there is only so much you can do. Most people also have to make a living and so time in the gym is limited. In my prime, I used to work out six to eight hours a day. That’s a heavy load and very few people can do that. So you must adjust The Formula to fit your personal constraints.   

            There are four 12-week cycles in The Formula and the novice must start by getting oriented physically and mentally. By orienting mentally, I mean getting into the existentialism of training. If you’re not thinking about work or the other important issues in your life, you are thinking training. You are thinking about never missing a workout. You are thinking about what to eat to help your workout. You are thinking you can’t wait to get to the gym, or the track, or the practice field, or the ball court. You will become a team of one, directing yourself, and developing into the person you have daydreamed about. Don’t doubt that you have the strength to do it, because when you doubt your strength, you strengthen your doubts.

By Brian Oldfield with George Houde

            In 1966, I went to the regional NCAA championships for Middle Tennessee State College. They were held at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., one of the Quad City towns.  I was doing double-duty at the time, because I also was competing for the University of Chicago Track Club at various AAU events. You weren’t supposed to do that back then, but the NCAA world just wasn’t big enough for me. 

            It was in early June, college was out, summer was ahead and I was just beginning to realize my potential. I wasn’t from Tennessee so I drove my grandmother’s 1948 Pontiac Silver Streak to Rock Island. It was blue and had a rear windshield wiper, a rare accessory at the time. I was proud of it and thought it was the bee’s knees.

            The meet was on Saturday and I drove out on Friday afternoon from Elgin, Ill., my hometown. Like Rock Island, Elgin at the time was a Midwestern river town on the verge of economic collapse.

            I didn’t know it at the time, but on this weekend I would become an army of one long before the U.S. Army ever bought into that ad campaign. I would have been the prototype for that except that I had already failed my draft physical because of my back problems. It sounds strange, since I was competing in heavy throwing events at the college championship level, but I had had recurring problems with my back since my teen years and never knew when it would give out and immobilize me for days at a time.  I could throw and throw and throw, but then just the slightest twist or movement off center would send shooting waves of pain through me. I remember one time I literally had to crawl for blocks on my hands and knees to get home.  

              So there I was tooling along in my ‘48 Pancho, heading for a weekend of top level competition in the shot-put, my favorite thing in the world. It would be a glorious weekend.

            I pulled into Rock Island in the late afternoon and checked out the athletic field. Augustana is a nice place,  has a good balance of athletics and academics and is one of those picturesque, highly regarded colleges. I looked around campus and then headed downtown to see what kind of activities were available in the Quad Cities, if which Rock Island is one.  The others are Moline, Ill., and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa.

            Naturally, I wandered into the local pool hall in Rock Island. There is a song about pool and pool halls and one of the lines says, and I paraphrase here, “Soon your son will be drinking beer from a bottle.”

            I started playing pool with a firefighter from the area — I don’t remember his name — and soon we were cruising the Quad Cities in his 60’s muscle car, rumbling down the main drags, drinking beer, chasing skirts. I realized had hooked up with a maniac with a hot rod. We hit all four towns of the Quad Cities. It was my version of “American Graffiti,” the George Lucas film that is a tribute to the 1960s teen lifestyle.

            I finally had to call it a night. The firefighter dropped me off at my car and I drove to the field at St. Augustine and parked in the lot. I went to sleep in the back seat, which was large, but still cramped my style.  I felt like I was on spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, rather than at a track meet in the Midwest. 

            In the morning, as team buses were pulling in and the sun was coming up, I awoke and realized how uncomfortable and hung over I was.  I was all crunched up. I think my eyes were bleeding. My head throbbed. There is nothing like a good hangover to make you realize how delicate our body chemistry is. 

            I began looking for the rest of the team. I figured they would pull in on a bus, too. I waited. And waited. Finally, I went over to ask the meet officials where the Middle Tennessee team was. The official said they weren’t coming.  That was it. No explanation. I don’t know what happened to them. They got lost maybe. They slept late. They got drunk the night before and they were hung over, like me. Maybe they got arrested.

            A lot of people might have gotten in the car and went home.  But not me. After the officials said the team wasn’t showing, I open my big mouth and said, “No, that’s not right. The team is here, right here, standing in front of you.”

            They smiled. Go ahead smile, I thought. I’ll show you.

            I signed up for all the throwing events plus the high jump, long jump, 100 yard dash and 110 yard hurdles. I didn’t sign up for the distance runs. I knew better.

            The shot-put was the first event so I got that out of the way. I threw about 61 feet.  The javelin was next. I was still trying to figure out how to throw that,  so it was experimental for me, but at least I didn‘t hit anybody with it and heaved it about 150 feet.            

            Then the discus. I remember the wind was blowing right into my face. I just wound up and threw as hard and as strong as I could for a throw of about 146 feet. Not great but respectable.  I had no technique in javelin and discus, they were just yee-haw throws.

            I hit 21 feet in the long jump, about 6‘2“ in the high jump,  did a 10.5 in the 100 yard dash and 16.8 seconds in the 110 hurdles.  

            Our team took second overall. I got second place overall. That was without breakfast. It was the longest day of my life, but by the end of the meet my hangover was gone.  I like to think that Jim Thorpe, my idol and his own team of one, would have been proud.

 By Brian Oldfield with George Houde

In 1980, I was living high on the hog in Los Angeles, training for the summer Olympics and sharing a pad with John Van Reenen, the great discus thrower from South Africa.

            It was my “Year of Living Lavishly.” I had landed a part in “Personal Best”, a film by Robert Towne about a lesbian track star who tries to convert one of her protégés to the other side. The film was a big Hollywood project. Towne had written the script for “Chinatown, ”  the Roman Polanski directed film which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture in 1974. Towne won the Oscar for best original screenplay for “Chinatown.” Jack Nicholson was nominated for his portrayal of Jake Gittes, the hard-boiled private detective who uncovers all the ugly secrets. The movie was a great success and remains a film noir classic.

            Towne put his Hollywood clout into “Personal Best.” There were high  expectations for the movie, which featured a sex scene between women and a scene of women athletes taking showers.  It was scandalous stuff which caused protests in Eugene, Ore., the film’s location. Local intellectuals handed out flyers saying that the movie was an insult to athletes and gave track and field a bad name. Mariel Hemingway played the protégé and became a friend of mine. I liked her. She laughed at my jokes.  She was a like a little sister and I think she felt petite and safe around me.   

            I hung out a bit with Towne and the new Rat Pack — Nicholson and Warren Beatty, Hugh Hefner and some other Hollywood types. I was being wined and dined by the Hollywoodies, going to meetings and being introduced around. It was fun getting your leg humped by people like that. I would drive up to the Warner Brothers studio and the guard at the gate would call Towne’s office and say, “Mr. Oldfield is here.” It made me feel quite important for a shot-putter, a career in which invitations to Hollywood festivities are few and far between.           

            More importantly, being in the film allowed me to train at the UCLA facilities. There was a summer Olympics coming up and I had sued the Olympic committee over my eligibility and won. I was getting ready to punch a hole in the sky again. Van Reenen and I would drive to training in his little Datsun — it looked like we were wearing it — so I was in hog heaven. 

            That’s when I met Dave Laut, who would become my protégé and one of my biggest challengers for shot-put supremacy in the 1980s. He was a UCLA student at the time and throwing with the traditional glide, but wanted to convert to the rotational throw. His German coach wouldn’t allow it though, so Dave had to wait until he graduated before he could do the Oldfield Spin.

            So, he became one of my converts. He was a good athlete, about my size and a very strong guy. He could overhead press 450 pounds for three reps.  I coached him through the conversion process and I could see that he was a fast learner, picking it right up, working on his technique. Soon he was challenging me and when he tied my American record at 72’3”, I said to myself, “Damn, can’t you stop coaching your competition?”

            But I’m not a top secret kind of guy. I like the camaraderie of throwers and I’d share tips and techniques or critique another guy’s throw. That is, if I liked them. And I liked Dave. He was a gentle giant and I thought he had a good heart.

            Eventually Dave became the only other person in the world to throw over 70 feet in both styles — the Parry O’Brien glide and the Oldfield Spin. At least, he was the only other person that I know of. If I’m wrong somebody will correct me, I’m sure. But from the time he learned the rotational throw until the end of my throwing career, I had a running battle with Laut to be top dog.

            In 1981 and 1982, he was very dominant.  I was ranked No. 1 and he was right there, barging in on me. I remember in 1983 at the Bruce Jenner Classic  we duked it out, one throw after another, pushing each other to the limit. That was a day of amazing throws. He ended up winning and first prize was a tiny motorcycle. He looked like a Polar Bear sitting on a tricycle. It was ridiculous.   

            Laut won a gold medal at the 1979 Pan American Games, a bronze medal at the IAAF World Cup in 1981 and a bronze at the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In 1985, he was ranked numero uno in the U.S. Then he tore tendons in his knees and that spelled the end of his throwing career.

            Though he was an opponent, I admired his determination and grit. We would joke that if we made money by throwing, we’d be billionaires, somewhere in the top 99.9th percentile, raking in greenbacks. Of course, he wouldn’t have made as much as me.

            But we weren’t billionaires, or even millionaires. Not even close. He went and got a job, unlike me. I threw my college degree down the toilet. I did use the education to help me process all of the analysis I needed to improve my throws, but  I never used it to get a permanent job. After I went to the Munich Olympics in ‘72, I never wanted to return to mundane life in the Midwest. 

            It was difficult to believe that Laut was murdered last year, shot to death in his own yard. Even more shocking was that his wife of 29 years was charged with murder. She first told police Dave had been shot by an intruder, but then changed her story under further questioning. She eventually told police Dave had abused her for years. I never saw anything like that in Dave. He just seemed like a very easy going guy. It will be interesting to see what happens in the case. The couple had a young adopted son who may provide some clues.

            Laut was only 52 and it was a sad day when he was killed. He still had some contributions to make and was the athletic director at Hueneme High School in Oxnard, Calif. He was a true disciple of throwing.  If there ever was a Boy Scout who had a good heart and would help little old ladies across the street, it was Dave Laut.

            When I think of him, I think of those great days in Hollywood, the training at UCLA, Mariel Hemingway, Towne, Nicholson.  It was a great convergence of personalities, talent and glamour. I ended up getting bumped from the film because I went on a European track and field tour for the summer. But that’s another story. Let’s just say I wanted to be on the track and field circuit, my real calling, getting close to Valhalla.

 BY BRIAN OLDFIELD with George Houde

            In 1969 I made my debut on the international track and field stage by getting invited to an event in the forbidden land of the Soviet Union.  It was in Moscow and we would be going behind what was then called the Iron Curtain, the wall of political isolation that manifested itself in the such things as the Berlin Wall, attack dogs, armed patrols, machine gun towers and land mines. It stretched from Poland to Bulgaria and was mostly to keep people in, rather than keeping people out.  The Soviet Union was that kind of place. People were dying to get out, literally.

            So, of course, I wanted to go there. It was a forbidden zone so that made it all the more exotic and adventurous. It was my introduction to the larger world and a memorable one it was, a coming out party as a shot-putting debutante.

            My travels had been limited to track meets in the U.S. and one to Windsor, Canada, which technically made it international, but since it’s right across the river from Detroit, it’s just like the U.S. It’s like the descending colon of the Midwest. No glamour or romance in that town.    

            For an American blue collar kid at that time, Moscow held no glamour or romance, either.  We thought of Russians and their comrades, the East Germans, as enemies with deadly intentions. Everyone knew of  the film “From Russia With Love” in which Sean Connery as James Bond had to fight for his life against the Soviet assassin played so well by the late actor Robert Shaw.  

            As an example of my sheltered life, Moscow was the first time I had soft boiled eggs, the first time I had espresso. It also was the first time I was followed by secret police. I didn’t like any of those. But I did like the French champagne and the Russian women, even though they didn‘t shave their legs or underarms. They were kind of scary. I liked them anyway. I was pretty scary myself.

            The meet would be between the U.S., East Germany and Russia in Moscow, home to the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb and the KGB. I remember there were long lines of Russian pilgrims waiting to see the corpse of Lenin in his glass tomb. They all looked like the cast of “Fiddler On the Roof.” Lenin didn’t though. He just looked dead.  

              Going to Moscow was a very big deal. A huge deal. It would be a test of wills, strength and intestinal fortitude. It was intimidating for a young Midwesterner to go there. As Americans, we had been brainwashed into thinking that Russia was a land where the birds didn’t sing and the sky was always the color of ashes.  It was a fortress country of Stalinistas, death, severe politics, potato soup, and harsh work camps. Almost sounds like an Olympic training camp! 

            I was astounded to find that birds did sing there, that the sky could be blue and sunny, and that the people were real human beings. Even the KGB agents, the ones that followed us around, were human beings, sort of. 

            Windsor was not anything like Moscow, even though the weather was much the same.  Moscow had it all. Drama and dread on the flight there, peasants on the steppes, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Kremlin, hot and cold running vodka, and a great happy ending  in my hotel room with several female athletes.

            I got invited to Moscow by default. I was still a student at Middle Tennessee State University, still trying to graduate. Nobody from MTSU ever went to Moscow. That was enemy territory, featuring godless commies and gulags. The only connection most people in the U.S. had with Russia was the Beatles’ song, “Back in the U.S.S.R.”

            But I had a throw of 63 feet even at the U.S. indoor nationals that year, a personal best, but not a first place in the meet.  The first and second place finishers, Randy Matson and George Woods, who threw 63 feet 11 inches and 63 feet 1 inch, respectively,  declined to go. They were top dogs at the time and had come in first and second in the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City, winning the gold and silver medals in the shot-put.

            Their refusal had nothing to do with politics or hatred of communism or any sort of protest. They both were married and had other things going on. They were busy in graduate school and were in competitive training programs and were being productive members of society. Besides, there was no pay to go to Moscow. We were amateurs and couldn’t get paid. We just kept doing it for God and country. Well, I also did it for the poontang.

             You did get some spending money — $2 a day. That was it. Of course, at that time in Russia, $2 per diem was a king’s ransom.  Now it sounds ludicrously small. But back then you could buy snacks, beer, cigarettes and vodka if you wanted. Besides, we were just throwers. We didn’t know that we had any cash value. We just threw because we liked to do it.  So Matson and Woods stayed home, leaving the door open for me. I don’t know if I ever thanked them.   

            I was still competing for the University of Chicago Track Club, my old training ground. The coach, Ted Hayden, had to squeeze me into the championships because my best throw of 57 feet was a little shy of qualifying. But he believed in me and finagled it. I don’t think he figured I would score a third, but I had been training hard and focusing. I am eternally grateful to the late coach Coach Hayden, too, for helping launch me on an illustrious career path.
            And so I made the team for U.S. vs. Russia vs. East Germany in Moscow. I thought it was a real perq. All expenses paid, couple of bucks in your pocket and rubbing shoulders with some of the best athletes in the world.  I was in hog heaven, even though I had to wear a size 17 pair of Puma shoes stuffed with toilet paper since I had size 15 feet. 

            It was March and when we landed in Moscow I remember there were women out on the runway shoveling snow. They were wrapped up like mummies and were out there cleaning off the runways and approaches. They were like shadows out there moving the snow around and around.

            I was stunned.  The Soviet Union had put men in space, had been the first to put up a satellite. They had a huge, feared army. Big, fast tanks. MIG jet fighters, a huge nuclear arsenal. And women shoveling the runways. Even Windsor had snow plows, big ones. 

            We had changed planes in Amsterdam to Aeroflot, a propeller plane that apparently was a hand-me down from the Soviet military. There was a lot of turbulence after that and the plane would drop hundreds of feet and then rise again. It was dead silent in the passenger compartment. Everyone was scared shitless.

          I was sitting next to Billy Gaines who was sitting next to Brooks Johnson, the sprint coach, who was in the aisle seat. Gaines suddenly started sounding like he was going to vomit, putting his hands over his mouth and fumbling with his seatbelt. He started leaning toward Johnson, making muffled retching sounds. Everyone could hear him.  Johnson was frantically trying to unbuckle his seatbelt to get away, but couldn’t. Then Gaines stopped, looked up and grinned. Everyone in the plane cracked up. It broke the tension and fear of the flight. We had been in white knuckle hell. After that, were weren’t terrified anymore. Just scared.

            Charlie Green, the sprinter, was on the squad. He was in the military and always wore sunglasses. I asked him about it and he said he wore them for re-entry. I think we all could have used shades for that flight.  It seemed like it lasted forever. And when we landed, I think the plane actually had square wheels. 

            We stayed at the Hotel Moskva. I drank with the coaches every night. It was an international hotel and there were a lot of women there from Iceland and Norway. It was a very interesting place, filled with spies, apparatchiks, diplomats, business people, and international intrigue. There I was, with the KGB following me, bad eggs for breakfast and beautiful blonde Nordic women all around. I don’t know why they were there, but I wasn’t going to ask questions, except for one.

            It was all heady stuff for me, a factory worker from Elgin, Illinois. In that one month of March, I went from being basically a nobody to being a player on the world stage, feared by opponents, chased by women, followed by the KGB. It was a wonderful feeling, overwhelming and euphoric.

            For a week, I felt like James Bond.

            It was a beautiful spring day and I was warming up for the meet that would put me on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I was throwing well in the warm-ups –  67’ 6”  from a standing position — even though I was dialing back my rehearsal routine. 

            Usually I went all out in the warm-ups. Sometimes I would warm up for an hour, take a break and then throw some more. Indoors, I would throw over 80 feet in warm-ups. It was all part of the show. We were performers, after all, and we wanted to give the fans in the stands their money’s worth. 

            But at the International Track Association meet in El Paso in 1975,  I was conserving my energy. I even cut out the usual back flips and other “Look ma, no hands” stunts that fans loved thought the meet was going to be televised on ABC‘s Wide World of Sports. I just had the feeling that I would need every milligram of energy I could muster that day.

            The 35 second rule was in effect, too. The producers wanted the action to move fast because a track and field meet can be like fishing without bait on the hook — really boring.  So after you threw and they took the measurement, the next thrower would be called and he had 35 seconds to get in the circle and throw. That way, things kept moving along.

            This was much different than amateur meets, where athletes would take their time. They would go through their prima donna rituals. The jumpers and vaulters would measure their steps,  put on another pair of shoes, or re-lace the ones they had on.  The runners would be checking the starting blocks and feeling the surface, checking the wind. The throwers would be smoking pot.

            No, just kidding. The throwers would hunker down, put on their best, meanest looking game faces and ignore each other. There was always a tremendous level of psych-out in the shot-put. There was absolutely no eye contact because nobody wanted to display any sort of weakness, which can show in the eyes. We were implosively into ourselves and each of us would stake out our little piece of turf and would defend it like junkyard dogs. “Don’t screw with me. Don’t look at me. Don’t see me. Don’t even think about looking. Just think about how I will crush you.”  That was our pre-event mantra.  

            On top of all that, we were in Bowie High School stadium, not much to look at, no cheerleaders, no pom-pom girls. However, for this occasion I was in fashionable black shorts and a tank-top with a Post cereal logo on the back. Post was one of the ITA sponsors. So, I was sitting there thinking about how to crush my opponents while wearing an ad for Post Toasties. I don’t know how much cash the company chipped in, but in the ITA we were glad to get anything. I would have started eating Post Toasties or Sugar Crisps, but they didn’t give us any free samples.  We called the Post rep “Sugar Bear” after the Sugar Crisps mascot.  

            Speaking of bears, I was throwing against Karl Salb, Randy Matson, and Fred DeBernardi that day. They were a tough crowd. Matson had silver and gold Olympic medals, DeBernardi was an NCAA champion in the discus and the shot, and Salb was one of those guys who could throw 72 feet warming up. I would need to reach deep down and gather all my mental and physical strength to beat them.  I would need luck, too.

            Somehow I had come into possession of a shot owned by Hans Hoaglund, a student at the University of Texas-El Paso. Either he had donated it to my cause or I had borrowed it from him. In any case, Hoaglund later used the same shot to win an NCAA championship. It would be a lucky shot for me, too.            

            As usual, I was trying to keep breakfast down. Competitions always made me so nervous I had to hit the bathroom and puke. Better there than on the field. It became a ritual with me. Throw up and then throw.  Worked for me. 

            At this meet I was at the top of the order and would throw first. We each had six throws. We were in the spotlight and the stadium was noisy, but I was oblivious to what was going on in the stands.  The crowd quieted as I stepped into the ring. My first throw was 68 feet 3 inches. Disappointing. I threw nearly that far from a standing position in the warm-ups. 

            I knew that the old fear of fouling was limiting me and that I wasn’t demanding enough of myself.  I was not in the groove yet, not at that point of total abandonment into the throw, not at the point where all of your physical and psychic power come together like nuclear fission and the chain reaction occurs — coil, spin, throw. Blam! Shock wave. 

            I stepped out of the circle and reviewed. It would be less than two minutes before I was up again so I had to make a quick fix. I felt that I had to get lower and attack the toe board. That means you need to drive your impulse foot into the area just behind the front of the board and lift at the end of the rotation. Your body becomes a catapult. In the rotational throw, you don’t heave the shot like you do in the traditional glide. You whip it, like a particle accelerator, except the particle weighs 16 pounds. The shot is already traveling through space and time when you extend your arm, which adds more acceleration to the particle.  

            I dug down into the nucleus of my being and drove a little harder and a little deeper. My next throw was 68-11. The particle accelerator was beginning to tune into the moment. The day wasn’t over yet and I was going radioactive.