UCLA Standout Has Chances This Season to Reach World Class in Javelin, Decathlon : Yet Another Connolly Throws Weight Around

For the Connolly clan, there are seemingly no boundaries to the wide world of sports.

Jim Connolly may be the most representative, since he’s a decathlete.

But his younger half brother, Adam, only 11, is throwing the hammer when he isn’t on his skateboard.

And Jim’s twin sister, Merja, was an All-American volleyball player on UCLA’s national championship team in 1984. She is now recovering from extensive foot surgery but is hoping to participate in the 1988 Olympics.

Older brother Mark, 27, a former basketball player at Oklahoma State, is an Olympic prospect as a heavyweight fighter.

And Brad Winslow, a stepbrother to Jim and Merja, is a starting guard on USC’s basketball team.

Parentage has, of course, something to do with all of this athleticism.

Harold and Olga (Fikotova) Connolly were gold medalists in the hammer throw and discus, respectively, in the 1956 Olympic Games.

They are divorced, and Harold is married to the former Pat Winslow, who competed in three Olympics in the ‘60s as an 800 runner and a pentathlete.

Pat is also the former coach of Evelyn Ashford, the 1984 Olympic champion and world record-holder in the 100 meters.

Such a background is impressive, but don’t assume that the younger Connollys just rolled out of bed one day, bursting with athletic talent.

Take Jim Connolly, for example.

He was a good track athlete at Culver City High School but not skilled enough in any particular event to warrant a scholarship to a major university.

Connolly was taught to throw the hammer and javelin as a teen-ager by Giampolo Urlando, an Italian Olympic hammer thrower.

But Connolly developed a blood clot in his left arm, a lingering problem that prevented him from competing his senior year in high school in any event.

“At that point, I really hadn’t decided whether I wanted to be an athlete, or not,” Connolly said. “Looking at all the marks in the NCAA meet, I knew there was no way I could come up to that level so quickly.

“So the decathlon seemed to be the quickest way to rise in the ranks. It was sort of a process of elimination.”

Connolly was a walk-on athlete at UCLA. He established himself as a freshman by placing sixth in the decathlon in the 1983 NCAA meet.

He was sixth again in the 1984 Olympic trials and, after redshirting in 1985, placed second in the decathlon in the Pacific 10 meet in 1986 and fourth in the NCAA meet.

However, it seemed that he was developing more rapidly as a javelin thrower than a decathlete. He’s the school record-holder with the old-style javelin at 256 feet 10 inches, and has thrown the new javelin 243-9.

The new javelin doesn’t fly as far. The weight has been redistributed, and it is top-heavy, compared to the old javelin.

Connolly has a best score of 7,771 points in the decathlon. That’s not enough for world-class recognition. He realizes that he has to get into the 8,400-point range.

Britain’s Daley Thompson is the world record-holder at 8,847 points. Bruce Jenner is the American record-holder at 8,634, a mark that has endured since 1976.

Connolly’s best marks in decathlon competition: 100--10.88, wind aided; long jump--24-3, wind aided; high jump--6-10 3/4; shotput--49-8; 400--49.06; 110-meter high hurdles--14.92; discus--143-1; pole vault--15-5; javelin--227-0; 1,500 meters--4:29.3.

The decathlon was once an American province--U.S. athletes winning eight gold medals in the Olympics from 1932 through 1976. But there wasn’t an American ranked among the top 10 decathletes in the world last year.

So there is incentive for Connolly to excel. He said he has been around 7,700 points for three years and, as a 24-year-old senior, he figures that he has to make a breakthrough this year.

“This is my last year of being supported through the school system and my own dwindling resources,” Connolly said. “I’ll have to get a score that would interest a sponsor, say, a shoe company, that I’m a worthy investment.”

Connolly added that it would be impossible to train the many hours demanded by the decathlon without financial assistance.

It was suggested that he might become a world-class javelin thrower if he doesn’t improve as a decathlete.

“I think about that,” he said. “It’s part of the game plan that I want to reach my potential in the decathlon, but I haven’t identified what that is. I know it’s much higher than 7,700 points.”

To reach that goal, Connolly is working with Allan Hanckel, a former decathlete from Syracuse. Hanckel is a conditioning coach at UCLA--but not a member of the track coaching staff.

“I’ve had those 7,700 points for three years because I was never really training as a decathlete,” Connolly said. “I was bouncing around from one event to another without any real plan. I was getting frustrated. Then Allan and I sort of found each other, and he has saved me.”

Connolly said that it made more sense to him to listen to one coach than to several specific event coaches, regardless of their qualifications.

“I was going from one (assistant) coach to another without much communication,” Connolly said. “My throwing coach didn’t know what I had done in my running, and my running coach didn’t know what I had done in jumping. So how could a program be prescribed to me when they didn’t know what I was doing in the other events?”

So an arrangement was made with Connolly that he could retain Hanckel as his decathlon coach. But there were some conflicts before it was resolved.

Connolly has distributed part of his scholarship to the rest of his team, getting most of his financial aid from a federal subsistence grant.

“It took some adjustments to be able to allow a little more individuality in this particular situation,” UCLA Coach Bob Larsen said. “Thankfully, it all worked out. Jimmy is doing great, and Allan has been effective in working with Jimmy. It was the best possible outcome under the circumstances.

“Jimmy suggested there would be adjustments on the scholarship, thinking of ways he would still be on the team, but going a little bit his own way. We don’t reduce anyone’s scholarships unless it is suggested by the person himself.”

Larsen said there was a sticking point because he has three decathletes other than Connolly.

“To keep him in the team situation or break it up was the difficult part,” he said.

Larsen said that Connolly’s idea of having only one coach for the 10 decathlon events is not necessarily the only way to train.

“Daley Thompson works with a lot of different coaches, our Alan Rigby in the hurdles and Art Venegas in the throws, for example,” Larsen said. “That was the situation we had set up for Jimmy and we thought it was a workable one.

“But Jimmy didn’t think it was the best situation for him. He thought working with one person coordinating all of it would be the preferable way to go. It took us awhile to get it done, but we did.”

So Connolly competes for UCLA in many events, but he listens to only one voice.

Harold Connolly believes that’s the best situation for his son.

“I told him that if you want to be a decathlete, you’ve got to work with one coach,” he said. “I have the highest respect for the coaches at UCLA. But a decathlon is one event with 10 parts to it. It’s better to have one good coach in the decathlon than to have three or four great coaches in the individual events.”

Meanwhile, Harold, a vice principal at Santa Monica High School, is earnestly working to develop young hammer throwers.

He supervises a throwing center at West Los Angeles College, a training site for the 1984 Olympics. It is now funded by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, which distributes money earned by the 1984 Olympic Games.

Adam is one of the young throwers.

“He throws once or twice a week,” Connolly said. “The college kids are amazed because his technique is better than almost all of them. He started throwing when he was 8.

“If he wants to do it when he gets older, it will be all there, like riding a bike. You just have to touch it up once in a while to get it refreshed. That’s what you have to do with young throwers. They have to learn early and they have to learn right.”

Connolly said that Adam likes to throw, but he also likes his skateboard.

“I’m not trying to push him,” Connolly said. “Just trying to keep him in touch with it.”

It would seem that there would be considerable pressure on Jim Connolly to perform at a high level, considering his background. He said there are positive and negative aspects to being the son of famous Olympic athletes.

“The positive thing is that I can benefit from 20 years of Olympic experience, a vast network of knowledge,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to learn that from them along with their friends, starting with Urlando.”

Connolly then added that he had been getting too much advice in the past, well meaning as it was.

“As for my parents, Urlando and the coaches at UCLA, I respect them individually as being knowledgeable, but they were telling me contradictory things,” he said. “Each of them meant to do the best for me, but I became a wreck.

“I could never grab onto something and say it was right. Just when I thought it was right, someone would say something contradictory, whether it be philosophy, or technique. It didn’t affect me physically, but it made me more insecure than I should be.”

Olga Connolly believes that it isn’t realistic or fair for Jim’s accomplishments to be compared to his parents’ of another era.

“No matter how good the parents were, the level of competition is so much higher now,” she said. “Conditions are so much different just, for example, in the amount of hours athletes are required to train in comparison to the past.”

Jim Connolly, amiable and enthusiastic, doesn’t seem to have any hang-ups, now that he has resolved his coaching situation.

“The TAC meet and an opportunity to make the team for the World Championships in Rome is what I’m trying to peak for,” he said. “That’s going to put it all into perspective as to who’s who in this country.”