Is There a Limit to What Kamy Keshmiri Can Do?

It’s 4 in the afternoon, and Kamy Keshmiri, the best high school discus thrower in the country, is dragging himself through another workout on the University of Nevada Reno campus.

He may have graduated last week, and many of his friends are celebrating in Hawaii, but here he is in the heat of June, going through the usual five-hour practice. At least, there is some wind to temper the heat.

In the end zone inside the empty football stadium, he is doing a jumping exercise to increase leg strength and stamina. Three sets of 10 rapid-fire, flat-footed, arm-extended leaps to touch the crossbar, with his father, Joe, close by, as always, to supervise.

“Some days, I work so hard and sweat so hard that I start to hallucinate,” Keshmiri says between repetitions. “I start to see things.”

Such as?

“The Olympics,” he says without missing a beat. “Numero uno.”

He pauses for a moment and continues the thought.

“Maybe some day. I’d say I’ve got a pretty good start, wouldn’t you?”

Sure. And the Rockefeller kids had a pretty good start on being rich. Find someone who would disagree, and they are the ones hallucinating.

What Keshmiri, an 18-year-old graduate of Reno High School who will attend UCLA in the fall, has done in the last three months doesn’t just make him the best prep discus thrower for this year or this decade. What he has done makes him one of the best high school track athletes in any event ever.

Imagine someone dominating his specialty to the point of having the 17 best marks all-time. Consider someone who has broken a national record three times since March 28. Or someone who, on three occasions, had five- and six-throw series that averaged 215 feet 3 inches or better. That’s nearly two feet beyond the pre-Keshmiri single-throw standard of 213-6 by Clint Johnson of Shawnee Mission, Kan., in 1980.

Keshmiri also holds the sophomore-class record at 200-10 and might have had the junior best if his throw at the 1986 Mt. San Antonio Relays in Walnut, Calif., had not hit the back of a chair inadvertently left in the field.

As Jack Shepard, the boys’ high school editor at Track & Field News for 18 years, said this week: “He has dominated the discus like Michael Carter had done with the shotput and Jim Ryun had done with the mile. Ryun’s and Carter’s numbers have already stood the test of time, and we’ll have to wait and see if that happens with Kamy. But he has put some marks out there that may not be beat for another decade.”

Along the way, Keshmiri has also become a prototype for future discus throwers, at least in high school. He gets 10-15 calls and letters a month from strangers around the country, most asking advice on throwing. Some coaches and competitors have even taken to sending blank video tapes, asking him to record workouts for them.

The rest are from girls, who tracked him down in the phone book. “Don’t write back if you have a big girlfriend,” a note from one recent admirer said.

It’s a demanding life with the training and school, but it seems simple at the same time.

Keshmiri, for instance, didn’t have to work for that 1986 gold Corvette--license plate: KAMY. He lives with his family in a beautiful 3,500-square-foot town house looking down on the city and has a full scholarship from UCLA, the NCAA champion no less, because he was able to get into a circle, corkscrew a few times and sail a 3-pound 9-ounce plate-like object through the air.

It is so simple. But to say it has been simple and easy would be a mistake. And to say that Kamy Keshmiri has single-handedly become the best high school discus thrower ever, why, that would be the biggest hallucination of all.

Jalal Keshmiri, escaping the ghetto of Tehran on his way to becoming a sports hero in Iran, arrived in America in 1962 without any money or understanding of English.

His first job was washing pots at the Lazy Susan restaurant at La Brea and Fountain in Hollywood, and his boss didn’t exactly appreciate the Persian language either.

“You want to work for me,” the boss said, “it’s Joe.”

And has been ever since.

It was Jalal, who represented Iran in four Olympics and won four golds medals, seven silvers and one bronze in the Asian Games, and it was Joe, who took language classes at Glendale College, worked with Jim Bush at Occidental College, won consecutive national junior college championships for Moorpark College and then two straight Far West Conference crowns for Nevada Reno.

He can laugh now when recalling that the original plan was to come to the United States for only three months for some coaching in discus technique.

Today, he is a successful general contractor who also owns two motels, two bars, a gas station, a restaurant and seven cars, including a Rolls-Royce, a Porsche and Kamy’s Corvette.

“(Kamy) was born in luxury,” Joe said. “He doesn’t have any idea what I went through. It’s hard for him to know.”

In 1978, as a 40-year-old with a growing business and no desire to compete for the revolutionary government, Joe retired after 24 years of competition.

About that same time, Kamy began and the two have been together at workouts ever since. The rich kid of the ‘80s, who wants no part of the family heritage, and his father, who grew up in a shack and often visited with the Shah, have a bond that transcends blood lines.

“With my brother (Jamy), they talk about the Lakers and Celtics and basketball and everything,” Kamy said. “They have a normal father-son relationship. . . . With me and my father, it’s on the field and in the weight room.”

Kamy first threw the discus at a Junior Olympic meet at Hug High here June 1, 1978. With a week of practice, he improved 10 or 11 feet at a regional competition in Hayward, Calif.

Four years later, he had reached the national final in Dayton, Ohio. It was the first time that Joe stayed away from one of his son’s meets. That was a test for both, and Kamy felt himself failing, in third place, with one throw remaining.

“I can’t go home in third,” he told the coach, Bruce Susang. “My dad will kill me.”

So Kamy sailed his final throw six inches beyond the leader’s throw and won. Susang was the first person to call Reno.

“Joe,” he said, “I’ve never seen any kid have that much fight.”

Nothing has changed in the nine years since, except that Team Keshmiri has grown stronger. Kamy still doesn’t make a move without consulting his father--”We decided on UCLA,” Joe says--and, for his part, this 49-year-old man sacrifices hours from work to oversee Kamy’s practices.

Just as noticeable: Rarely does a day go by when Kamy does not thank his dad for the workout.

This is the place to gamble, right?

Team Keshmiri did just that last summer by throwing away the type of body that had finished the year with the third-best discus mark in the country. They scrapped it like an out-of-date Indy car.

For the first time, Joe, always a firm believer that speed and agility are more important than strength in the discus throw, sent Kamy to the weight room and told him to bulk up.

In the eight months before the 1987 season, he added 27 pounds, bringing the weight on his 6-foot, 2-inch frame to 217. Twenty-seven more pounds to spin in the ring, bigger muscles to keep loose, he might as well have gone back to Dayton to try this one out before the first big meet.

“It’s like being a gambler,” Joe said. “You always want to save your last card for the last moment. We knew he would gain a lot by weightlifting, but we didn’t want to use it all in his sophomore and junior years because I was afraid he would lose the technique.”

When it came time to roll out the new model, Kamy didn’t lose his technique. Just some of his confidence.

The meets in January and February brought disappointment--marks in the 180s and 190s. He had a four-week break before the next meet, and Team Keshmiri filmed the workouts every day, then went back and analyzed them. Maybe too much bulk, they figured, so he slacked off some on the weights.

His first meet back was snowed out.

The next one, his first competition in six weeks, produced another cold front, though not in the air. Just in outlook. It was another 191.

“That barrier (the national record) was so great,” Kamy said. “It was getting harder and harder and harder. I came in saying, ‘This is my last year to do it or else my name won’t go down in the books.’ ”

The Stanford Invitational on March 28 opened in the all-too familiar manner: A 190 to open and a foul. The stakes were getting higher each week, and Team Keshmiri kept showing a pair of 10s.

Then, suddenly, Kamy exploded.

He threw 207-8 on his third try, tying Scott Crowell of Mason City, Iowa, for the fourth-best mark ever.

On the fourth attempt, he drew to an inside straight and filled it. The uncertainty and Johnson’s 7-year-old mark of 213-6 fell by the wayside in the same throw--a 214-11 effort. Keshmiri ran over to Joe, hopped a six-foot high fence, hugged his dad and cried for joy.

“What a relief,” he said.

Actually, it was only the start. Two weeks later, he was back in California and pushed the mark to 224-3 at Arcadia. Then, the next Saturday at Mt. Carmel in San Diego, he had a best of 223-9, and the week after that it was a 224-1 at Mt. SAC.

Finally, there was what is being called the greatest meet ever in high school discus. Last Saturday at the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento, Keshmiri had a long throw of 225-2, with three of more than 220 and an extraordinary series average of 218-4.

Jackpot.

Says Joe: “I pushed him, there’s no doubt about it. . . . Am I like a Little League father? No. Some guys are in the stands shouting, ‘C’mon, Bobby!’ You see Bobby down there and he’s so fat he can’t even walk. I pushed Kamy because I saw his potential.”

Says Kamy: “He’s very hard to please, my father. He’s appreciative, but he doesn’t stop. I push myself harder than he pushes me, but he’s a perfectionist. He’s really tough.”

Says Angela Keshmiri, wife and mother: “It’s been in our life so many years. Here we are, the discus family.”

Kamy will compete in his final high school meet today, the 16th Keebler Invitational in suburban Chicago, which means that the teacher-student relationship ended Thursday.

On another warm, clear day, they were back for more jumping and throwing and stretching at UNR, working on a body that drew the attention of football coaches from Texas A&M; and Nebraska, though Kamy has never played football.

Back to the spot in and around the football stadium where, when the weather is just right, Kamy can see forever.

ALL-TIME HIGH SCHOOL DISCUS PERFORMERS

Rk Name (Hometown) Mark Year 1 Kamy Keshmiri (Reno) 225-2 1987 2 Clint Johnson (Shawnee Mission, Kan.) 213-6 1980 3 Dwight Johnson (Tempe, Ariz.) 212-11 1987 4 John Nichols (Winnfield, La.) 212-0 1987 5 Brian Blutreich (Mission Viejo) 210-8 1985 6 Dave Porath (Atwater) 209-6 1978 7 Scott Crowell (Mason City, Iowa) 207-8 1978 8 Dock Luckie (Ft. Pierce, Fla.) 205-8 1977 9 Mike Goad (Marengo, Iowa) 204-10 1981 10 Michael Carter (Dallas) 204-8 1979

SOURCE: Jack Shepard, Track & Field News