Chiefs Olympic Track & Field Team

From River Falls, Wisconsin

Just two years ago, Chiefs RB Jamaal Charles posted Olympic qualifying times in the 100 and 200 meters.  Rather than going through training camp here in the northwoods, he might have worked his way to a spot with the U.S. Olympic team and earned a trip to Beijing for the Summer Games.

You can read more about Charles and his track career today on kcchiefs.com.

There are others on the Chiefs current roster that had success in the track and field world as prepsters and collegians and might have earned spots in the Olympics had they concentrated their efforts there.  That group includes:

• DT Ron Edwards, who won the Texas 5A shot put and as a high school senior.
• T Will Svitek was a national youth champion in the decathlon and also threw the shot put and discus while he was at Stanford.
• S DaJuan Morgan won the Florida 2A state title in the 400 meters.
• WR-KR Kevin Robinson was in the California state high school finals in triple jump as a senior.
• LB Steve Octavien won the Division III junior college discus with a throw of 164′ 7″. He also ran the second leg of the 2004 national junior college championship 4×400 meter relay team.

Edwards barely remembers his time as a shot putter at Forest Klein High School in Houston, TX.  “It was just something to do,” Edwards said.  “It really wasn’t anything I spent a lot of time on.  I just kind of threw the shot.  A lot of guys had these twisting moves before the throw, I just chucked it.”

“Chucked” it well enough to win the Texas 5-A title in 1997 with a throw of 62 feet, 2 ¼ inches.  The year before that state title, he finished second in the national Junior Olympic meet with a throw of 56 feet, 5 inches.  “You know, I barely remember that,” Edwards said.  “I just remember being at a meet and it wasn’t very well organized.”

At that same Junior Olympic meet, but in a different age class, Svitek threw the shot and the discus, finishing 12^th in both events.  In high school, Svitek won his league title in the shot put and he was fourth in the 110-meter hurdles.

Morgan ran the 100, 200 and 400 meters in high school, but the 400 was his race and he won the 2002 title with a time of 49.21 seconds.  At Hoover High School in Fresno, CA, Robinson made the state finals in his senior year for the triple jump.

At Lely High School in Naples, FL, Octavien was one of the country’s best schoolboy throwers of the discus.  His heave of 193 feet, 2 inches was 13^th best in the country.  He won a Florida state title as a junior with a throw of 178 feet, 6 inches.  He went on to track success at William Rainey Harper College in suburban Chicago, where he won a national junior college title in the discus and was a member of the school’s 4×400 meter relay team.

If you don’t follow track & field, here’s one note on the shot and discus you may not know.  At the high school level, the shot weighs 12 pounds and the discus weighs 3 pounds, 9 ounces.  On the college and Olympic level, the shot generally weighs 16 pounds and the discus goes at 4 pounds, 7 ounces.