‘Don’t get in your head’: Former WSU hammer thrower Brock Eager tries to keep balance at U.S. Olympic Trials

Brock Eager doesn’t take a dos-and-don’ts list with him into a big meet like the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.

Maybe just one don’t.

“Don’t get in your head too much,” he said. “If you think, ‘Oh, these are the trials or the U.S. championships and I need to crush it,’ well, you’ll probably end up not crushing it.”

And being crushed instead.

So the Hayden resident and Washington State graduate will strive for that elusive emotional even-keel when he steps in the hammer ring for the qualifying round Friday at Hayward Field in Eugene.

But the fact is, if Eager doesn’t have to crush it, he may have to pound it pretty hard.

Such is the state of the hammer in the United States. On the cusp of the previous Olympic cycle, the event made a decided competitive uptick. The winning mark in the national championships between 2018 and 2019 jumped 14 feet. In the Olympic Trials in 2021 – when Eager finished sixth – Rudy Winkler set an American record of 271-4, and it took 256-11 to make the team.

“The United States as a whole has gotten a whole lot better at hammer throwing,” Eager said. “It’s gone up in leaps and bounds. My best throw in 2021 would have made the Olympics in 2016 and won the trials (in 2012). In 2016, 243 feet made the team; now that’s eighth in the U.S.”

Eager, too, has been making gains since his graduation from WSU in 2019, and not just in the ring.

A job with Tunista Construction brought him to the Spokane Valley a few years ago, and last summer, he married Chrisshnay Brown, a one-time thrower for the Cougars herself. He continues to train out of the Iron Wood Throwers Center east of Rathdrum and representing their club, his work days stretching to 12 hours between his job as an estimator and his love of the hammer.

Last year, he upped his lifetime best to 251-3, finished fourth at the U.S. championships and cracked the top five in Track and Field News’ U.S. rankings.

And like most of his rivals, Eager has tried to make his 2024 season one of fine-tuning and consistency, a slow build with the goal of peaking at the trials. Only one American, Daniel Haugh, has topped 255 feet this year.

At the recent two-day Iron Wood Classic at the club facility, Eager didn’t get in a fair throw in the first day of competition, then rebounded to reach 245-6 the second and finish second to former UCLA thrower Justin Stafford.

“I think I’ve had a good season, nothing crazy,” Eager said. “I haven’t hit ‘the one,’ as you’d say, but I’ve been consistent. I’ve had four or five meets between (243 and 247 feet). Usually a series of meets consistently throwing like that kind of shows you’re ready to get the big one, and I’m just hoping the trials will be the day.”

But often as not, those big throws simply happen instead of being hunted down.

“I’ve been to a lot of meets in my life and you just have to treat every one of them as just a meet and not make it into something too big,” he said. “If all the preparation’s been done, things should take care of themselves.

“I know some guys who come in and think, ‘oh, I need to throw this distance to make it. If I can just throw my PR – 76.58 (meters) or 77 – that could make it.’ People come in thinking they need to throw 78, everybody gets tight and 76 actually is enough to make the team.”