UC Irvine Notebook : Nailing Down His Specialty : Morales Tosses Himself Into the Hammer Throw

Two years ago, Mike Morales found a new sport . . . literally.

He was rummaging around in the oversized shed that serves as the equipment/weight room for UC Irvine’s track team when he came across a dismantled hammer. That’s hammer, as in the kind they sling in the Olympics, not the nail-driving variety.

But it might as well have been a construction tool for all the expertise Irvine’s coaching staff had on the subject. When Morales began teaching himself how to throw the thing, he was holding it in the wrong hand. No one at Irvine noticed.

Morales, however, is not easily detered, and takes to new sports like ducks switching ponds. He lettered in varsity tennis as a freshman at Garden Grove High School, switched to track and taught himself to throw the discus as a junior and was an All-Garden Grove League offensive tackle in football.

“I found the hammer and went out and started throwing it,” he said. “I knew we didn’t have anyone in the event and we were losing points at meets, so I figured what the heck.

“I was over in the cage throwing it when (Coach Vince O’Boyle) walked over. At first I thought he was going to yell something like, ‘Hey, quit tearing holes in the dirt, one of my runners could get hurt in a divot,’ but he just watched and then left.”

Morales took that as a sign of approval, so he continued his one-man quest to learn the intricacies of hammer throwing.

“I got tapes of Olympic hammer throwers from other athletes,” Morales said. “I talked to other athletes and other coaches after meets. And I videotaped myself . . . whenever I could. Most of the time, I couldn’t find a coach, or even another athlete, to run the camera. . . . The field events aren’t too big around here.”

O’Boyle admits that Morales was “neglected” in the hammer, but only because no one on his staff had the knowledge to instruct him in anything but the basics.

Still, Morales made remarkable improvements. As a sophomore last year, he finished second in the Big West Conference championships in the event with a school-record throw of 197 feet 5 inches.

Sunday, he eclipsed that record, flinging the hammer 199-6 during the Long Beach Relays, less than three feet short of qualifying for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships. His distance in the event has improved 31 feet since his freshman year at Irvine.

“It wasn’t hard to stay motivated, even though I wasn’t getting much support,” Morales said. “Every day, I’d throw it a little farther and that kept me going.”

These days, Morales is getting help. John Frazier, a shotputter who graduated from UCLA in 1986 and competed in the Olympic Trials last summer, is a part-time assistant coach working with Irvine’s throwers.

After a bit of head-knocking, Frazier and Morales are becoming a team.

“Mike’s never had a coach before and all through the fall we fought, mostly about technique,” Frazier said. “Plus, we’re close in age and it’s my first year coaching, so we both had a lot to learn.

“Now, he knows where I’m coming from and I understand him. Now, we’re working together.”

Morales had been getting along pretty well without help. He’d never had a discus coach in high school and was fourth in the event in the Big West meet last season. And he was beginning to hammer out the fine points of the hammer by himself too.

“I’d always done things my own way,” Morales said, “and there were conflicts in the beginning. But John has really helped me. Now, I know I’m practicing the correct technique. And he’s very knowledgeable about (weight)lifting.

“Also, when you work out by yourself, there’s a tendency to do too much. John has helped me learn when to quit so I can peak for meets.”

If nothing else, he’s got someone to push the record button on the video camera.

Frazier, who has an upper body that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud, is excited about Morales’ potential because his protege has plenty of room for improvement in the strength department.

“When we show up at meets, people always ask if Mike’s a decathlete,” Frazier said, “but he’s going to keep getting bigger and stronger.

“If Mike keeps progressing, he should score at the NCAAs this year. I think he’s one of the top young hammer throwers coming up. Getting that (personal best) so early in the year is a good indication of how well he’s coming along.”

Morales sees his lack of strength as just another avenue for improvement. It’s certainly an obstacle he has dealt with before. At Garden Grove High School, he was a 6-foot, 180-pound tackle who used “quickness and wits” to get by.

“We weren’t too good. I think we won two games in my junior and senior years,” he said. “A lot of nights, you’d look at the guy across the line of scrimmage and decide your main goal was just to survive.”

Morales, who has gained 10 pounds since last year and now weighs 215, says he gets a kick out “beating the hulks,” which happens almost every time he wins an event.

“Just about everyone I compete against is stronger than me,” Morales said, “and I think that bodes well for the future. I’m happy the way things have progressed. This is an event you can do for a long time. . . . Just look at the guys who are 40 and older who have done so well in the throwing events.

“And you don’t have to be huge. The world record holder (the Soviet Union’s Yuri Sedykh at 284-7) is a little Russian guy with a bald spot. He doesn’t look like much, he just throws the hammer 100 feet farther than everyone else.”

O’Boyle, of course, will be happy if Morales throws the hammer an inch farther than everyone else for a couple of seasons.

“Mike did a great job last year, but he’s only scraping the surface,” O’Boyle said. “I think he’ll be throwing all the implements a long way this year.”

A week ago, when the men’s basketball team was a four-game home sweep away from second place in the Big West, Coach Bill Mulligan’s goal of making the top six seemed almost a cinch.

A week later, Irvine could win its final two games and still have to play Wednesday night in the tournament’s qualifying round, which pits the seventh-place finisher against No. 10 and No. 8 against No. 9.

Irvine is 8-8 and in seventh place in the conference. Cal State Fullerton and Utah State are tied for fifth at 9-7. Cal State Long Beach and UC Santa Barbara are tied for third at 10-7.

It’s still possible for Irvine, Fullerton, Long Beach, Santa Barbara and Utah State to end up 10-8 and tied for third. In that case, Santa Barbara would be seeded third, Fullerton fourth, Utah State fifth, Long Beach sixth and Irvine seventh.

There’s also the possibility of a four-way tie for fifth with Irvine, Fullerton, Utah State and Fresno State all finishing 9-9. That would mean Irvine would be seeded fifth, Fullerton sixth, Fresno seventh and Utah State eighth.

All of which all means it’s possible Irvine would be better off to finish 9-9 than 10-8.

Go figure.

Mulligan was a vocal proponent of last season’s rule change that eliminated point differential as a method of determining Big West tournament seeding in the event of ties.

Point differential encourages running up the score in blowouts and most coaches were against it.

The first criteria is still head-to-head competition and, in the event of multiple-team ties, the combined records against each other are used.

In the four-way tie scenario, for instance, Irvine would be 4-2 against the group and get the fifth seed. Utah State would be 2-4 and get the eighth seed.

In the possible five-way tie for third, Santa Barbara would be 5-3 against the group, Irvine would be 3-5 and everyone else would be 4-4.

The second criteria, for the 4-4 teams, is record against the Big West’s toughest opponents. In the five-way tie, Fullerton would get the No. 4 seed behind Santa Barbara because the Titans beat Nevada Las Vegas, which will finish first in the standings. Utah State has two victories over New Mexico State (which would finish in second place), so Utah State would get the fifth seed. Long Beach would be No. 6.

Mulligan’s response when informed of these possibilities?

“Wow.”

Anteater Notes

The men’s tennis team took second in the International Tennis Coaches Assn. National Team Indoor Championships, losing to No. 4-ranked California, 5-3, in the championship match Sunday. Irvine, ranked seventh in the nation, beat No. 17 Pepperdine in the first round and picked up its first ever win over USC (No. 12) in the second round. The Anteaters beat No. 8 South Carolina in the semifinals. “It was one of those rare, beautiful moments in a coach’s lifetime,” said Coach Greg Patton, who’s never prone to understatement. “We were just a handshake and a smile away from beating them and we played without (Mike) Briggs.” Patton was so excited about the victory over USC, he shaved his mustache. Irvine went into the competition with a 2-4 record, but the losses had come to the Nos. 1, 2, 6 and 10 teams in the country and all were on the road. “As experienced and talented as this team is, I wanted to make them humble,” Patton said of the tough schedule. “We learned some humility and we were tired of taking lumps. We called it ‘Redemption Week.’ ”

Coach Bill Mulligan wants to stay out of Wednesday night’s Big West tournament qualifying games because he thinks “it’s almost impossible to win four straight in that tourney.” But he doesn’t care which team Irvine plays. “I don’t give a damn,” he said, “because I don’t think there’s anyone we can’t beat. Of course, there’s no one we can’t lose to, either.”

The men’s swimming team took second in the Big West Conference championships Sunday, the highest finish in school history. Anteater swimmers set seven school records during the meet. Junior Brian Pajer won the 100-yard breaststroke in 55.51 seconds, a school record, and the 200-yard breaststroke. Pajer has won both breaststroke events in all three conference meets in which he has competed. . . . Mulligan on sophomore power forward Ricky Butler: “He’s by far the smartest player on the team. Hands down. He sees the defense. He doesn’t make mistakes.” Mulligan said he wants Butler to take 20 shots a game. In his past four games, Butler has averaged about 11 shots. . . . Mulligan on tonight’s 8:30 ESPN game against Utah State, which will be the first national broadcast out of the Bren Center: “It’s really nice. My relatives (in Chicago) can watch us, if they can stay up until 10:30 at night.”