Raymond Dykstra finished sixth in javelin at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. (Josh McCoy, UK Athletics)
On Thursday, freshman track and field athlete Raymond Dykstra finished sixth overall in javelin at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He was close to his personal-best distance with a throw 74.4m, best among any freshman at the event.Dyksta’s story is an interesting one, as it was getting cut from his Grimsby, Ontario high school’s soccer team that got his track and field going. Sean Cartell of the SEC Digital Network has the story:
“I actually wasn’t going to do track and field,” Dykstra said Thursday at Drake Stadium. “I got cut from the varsity soccer team when I was in grade nine and I said I wasn’t going to do athletics. As I was sitting in one of my classes one day, the track coach came up to me and said that she had heard that, in past years, I had been on the relay team and I had done fairly well. She said, ‘Would you like to come out to my relay team?’ I said, ‘Sure.'”Dykstra enjoyed his time with the relay team, but during practices, another event kept catching his eye. Finally he asked if he could just try the event himself.“It was late in the season, but in a couple of practices, I saw one fellow throwing the javelin,” Dykstra said. “I asked my coach if I could go try the javelin and she said ‘Sure, you can go try.'”As it turns out, the javelin was meant to be for Dykstra.
