Still Throwing His Weights Around : Shotputter Blutreich Battles Against Injuries, Self-Doubt

Brian Blutreich still holds the Orange County high school records in the shotput (69 feet 6 1/2 inches) and the discus (210-8) by a long shot.

He set them in 1985, during his senior year at Capistrano Valley High School. That was the year everything went right, the year he received a plaque for four years of perfect attendance, the year he took the homecoming queen to the senior prom, the year he received his second All-American award in track and field.

He was a sure shot to excel in college. Track powers UCLA, USC, Arizona State, Arkansas, Texas and Southern Methodist wooed him. He chose UCLA and arrived with high expectations.

He was redshirted his first year at UCLA and, competing for the Santa Monica Track Club, set a national 19-and-under record in the shotput with a throw of 63-5 1/2.

He hasn’t put the shot that far since.

At the end of his season with Santa Monica, the shot, his favorite event, backfired.

“The shot slipped out of my hand and I basically pushed it out with one finger,” Blutreich said. “It was not a good sight. They said I tore ligaments.”

“He basically was the leading thrower in the world for the juniors at age 19 right before he injured his hand,” said Art Venegas, UCLA’s throwing coach. Venegas said the injury made Blutreich throw tentatively. Instead of generating power by snapping the shot with his wrist and fingers, he began guiding the shot, Venegas said.

“The shot is a very unforgiving implement,” said Blutreich’s father, Len, who helped coach Brian in high school and who threw the discus for Cal State Los Angeles and competed in the 1960s for the Southern California Striders amateur track club.

“Here you are generating speed through the spin, generating all these forces that all come out through the wrist and hand, and you know some pain is coming at the end of that, so you try to modify your form a little bit so as to try to not have as much pain.”

Blutreich did reinjure the hand during his first season of competition at UCLA, making his first two seasons of competition at UCLA a struggle from which he is only now beginning to emerge.

But as he competed through pain for two years, Blutreich began to doubt himself.

“He hit rock bottom,” Venegas said. “I mean the kid was absolutely destroyed his freshman and sophomore years. He started to rise his junior year,” which ended this month.

“Based around the injury he just felt like, ‘God, I can’t produce.’ He used to be a major part of the program and now he felt like he was just hanging on.”

Blutreich describes the period as “just a very tough time. My teammates, who I came in with, were all making the Olympic team and going to Europe and competing, and it was just very tough on me not doing what I was capable of doing.

“When you’re hurt throwing the shot, your legs don’t do what they are supposed to do. . . . Last year I really thought about quitting the sport. I had the phone in my hand and I was ready to call coach and say, ‘Hey, I’m not having fun; I just want to quit.’ Obviously I didn’t make the call.”

Instead, he talked with friends and did some soul-searching on the beach.

“I tried to think what life would be like without the sport and basically decided I had to keep going because I never quit.”

Blutreich is a perfectionist by nature. He was awarded plaques for perfect attendance in junior high and high school and earned the arrow of light, the highest honor in Cub Scouts in Mission Viejo Troop 704. His bedroom is covered with medals, trophies and plaques for his athletic and other accomplishments.

“There was a lot of pressure on you to do well,” Blutreich said. “They give you a scholarship and expect a lot of big things out of you and you don’t produce. A lot of pressure is there from the outside and inside.”

Said Venegas: “I don’t think he had a lot of pressure from outside people. His family is very low-key and very supportive. Here at UCLA, though, you have very high-level people like Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The pressure has been more Brian’s pressure. He is very demanding of himself. But that is what makes him a good athlete.”

Blutreich is a solid 6-foot-5 1/2, 280 pounds, helped in part by an extensive weight-training program he started in junior high under coach Dave Elecciri, now football coach at San Clemente. Because he has a frame that he has to fold to fit into the front seat of his Mustang, some people think Blutreich uses drugs such as steroids or human growth hormones, he said.

“People always ask me, ‘So what are you taking?’ I say I’m taking pizza,” Blutreich said.

But he was not so nonplussed about such queries when he was injured and struggling.

“You throw far and people have to come up with some excuse on how you did it,” he said. “When I wasn’t doing well, everyone started saying, ‘Oh, he’s not taking his drugs.’ At first I felt a lot of hatred and bitterness. But I learned how to deal with it. I did a lot of growing up during that time. I definitely matured a lot.”

No matter how bad things got, Blutreich said he never considered taking steroids because he is a Christian, and because he did not want to embarrass his family.

“It (steroid use) is crazy,” he said. “It defeats the whole purpose of sport. I never took the drugs probably because of my family. I’m an only child and my parents mean a lot to me, and they sure wouldn’t approve of it.”

Blutreich says he’s looking forward to a new policy that goes into effect July 1, in which The Athletic Congress has authorized random drug testing of the top 25 competitors in each discipline.

Blutreich’s comeback began when he finished third in the discus with a throw of 188-6 at the 1988 NCAA outdoor championships. “That was the motivation he needed to move on,” Venegas said.

“(This year) at the Pac-10 championships and the NCAA championships, he began to show signs of the Brian of old with a lot of snap in his wrist where he put pressure on his hand again.”

Blutreich won the Pac-10 title in the discus last month with a throw of 195-0. He placed third in the shot at the NCAA indoor meet in Indianapolis in March with a throw of 60-0 1/2.

In the NCAA outdoor championships in Provo, Utah, this month, he placed third in the shot (61-9) and fourth in the discus (189-0) despite an injured knee.

A week later, he went to the Tucson Invitational in Arizona and threw a lifetime best (199-8) in the discus, the fourth-best mark in UCLA history.

But while warming up for the shot, he severely sprained his ankle, causing him to miss last weekend’s The Athletic Congress national championships in Houston. He had thrown the shot 62-8 in the qualifying rounds before the injury.

“He has had some bad luck with injuries, there is no doubt about it,” Venegas said.

His bad luck hasn’t run out yet. He is taking off a month or so from training while he recovers from surgery that removed a cyst from his back.

“Now what he has to do is overcome that fear and really start attacking his throw and I predict he can throw the shot 66 feet next year and the discuss 210 feet,” Venegas said.

(Mike Buncic of the University of Kentucky holds the NCAA record in the discus at 217-11, set in 1985. UCLA’s John Brenner holds the shot record at 71-11 1/4, set in 1984.)

“He has a very good shot at being rated No. 1 in the shot and discus his senior year in college and that is a natural progression,” Venegas said. “He has talent enough that if he becomes motivated and gets the financial support, he could be an Olympian.”