Straight shooter Owen Edlen seeks to spin his way into state meet in two throwing events with his performances today at Valparaiso regional

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Should I spin or should I glide? Owen Edlen is not the first shot putter to weigh that question. Gliding is easier to master but does not generate as much power as spinning, also known as rotating. Spinning, though, is less forgiving of slight errors in technique.
Not having his best season throwing the shot and doing better than ever in the discus, an event performed by spinning, Edlen went to school one Sunday in April and taught himself. Since coaches aren’t allowed to work with athletes on Sundays, that was his only option. He decided to give spinning a whirl.
He tried to spin a little heading into his junior season but abandoned it quickly in favor of the more comfortable glide.
“I’ve done the glide my freshman, sophomore and junior years. The glide is simpler and it’s a little easier to pick up. For me, I always did the glide because I’m not an all-year-round thrower,” he said. “I do football and there’s no track for me during football season. Since the glide is simpler, I always stuck with that. But as I did discus more and more often, I started to get better at the rotation.”
So he tried it with the shot on a “random Sunday.”
“I threw 53 and I was throwing farther than I was with my glide,” he said. “I sent the videos to the coaches and the next day they said, ‘Hey, we watched. We think we’ll try rotation.’ The past month it’s been a process getting there, but the coaches and I knew that when it hits, it’s going to go far, farther than the glide would go The main thing that separates the glide and the rotation is basically the rotation. It’s a lot harder to do. However, once you get it, it gives you more speed and momentum, which obviously results in a farther throw, once you get the perfect technique.”
But in the regular season and the DAC championship, he didn’t translate the Sunday throws to meets. His distances in the four meets leading into last week’s sectional: 48-2.5, 49-7, 44-3, 48-6, from a thrower who placed eighth in the state last June with a 55-10.5 in the rain.
Then he won his third consecutive sectional title in the shot put with a personal record 56-6. How did he even have the confidence to stay with rotating and out of nowhere pop a lifetime best throw, which was more than 5 feet longer than any throw since March 15?
He said that his reading from the previous night was a factor, but he wasn’t thumbing through “101 Shot Put Drills” by Rob Lasorsa and James A. Peterson, or “Teach Yourself Shot Put,” by Ram Gopal or “The Shot Put Handbook” by Lawrence W. Judge and Mike Young. The reading material had nothing to do with throwing and everything to do with the thrower.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Legitimately, I’ve always been led by faith and that’s what it is,” Edlen said in the dark in the wake of his victory. “It’s actually crazy. Last night I was reading my daily devotional, and I was reading about how the people of Israel, God performed so many miracles to take them out of slavery and then he kind of put them in this waiting period before he led them to the promised land. They started to get impatient. They started to kind of lose faith and stuff like that, even after all the miracles he had done in the past, he was testing their patience, and he led them to the promised land eventually.”
Edlen took that as a sign that all would go well at the Portage sectional.
“I kid you not, I didn’t purposely choose to read that last night. I flipped to a page and that was what was read,” he said. “When we got to the finals, I was looking up and I was like, ‘He’s done it before. He’s going to do it again.’ I feel really blessed and grateful.”
Edlen didn’t leave the meet convinced he has the new technique licked, but the result boosted his confidence.
“There is still work to do but I’ve definitely gotten better than I was, and I’m definitely more consistent at getting it than I was,” he said.
One more time, the straight shooter looked back on the day he started spinning.
“I went out on my own and I just wanted to give it a shot, no pun intended,” he said. “I figured what’s the worst that can happen? And it just flew. So, then it was a process getting consistent at it. And obviously the coaches have been working with me.”
Edlen enters today’s Valparaiso regional ranked second, based on sectional marks achieved by the athletes, in the shot put behind Merrillville’s Adam Camphor. Edlen ranks fourth in the discus.
The top three finishers in each event advance to the state meet, as do those who meet the predetermined state standard. After that, the next best performers from all the regionals are added until the total number of participants reaches 27. The state standard for the shot put is 56-4, and it’s 161-4 for the discus. Edlen’s best discus throw went 163-4, so even if he doesn’t finish top three in the two throwing events, he can make the state meet in both events if he matches his lifetime bests.