FORT COLLINS — For a guy who would become nationally respected for coaching the throwers on the Colorado State track team across three decades — two of whom went on to become Olympians — Brian Bedard had a very modest start to his career.
Bedard’s mentor, assistant coach Ray Manzi, left CSU as Bedard was finishing his time as a discus thrower there. Doug Max, then CSU’s head track coach, needed to hire a replacement for Manzi and saw a bargain in Bedard.
“The salary was so bad that Doug Max really didn’t have an opportunity to hire somebody that was quality, so he hired me,” Bedard recalled. “I kind of jumped in with both feet. Didn’t really know what I was doing, aside from what Ray taught me. It was kind of the school of hard knocks from that point.”
Years later Bedard would coach Casey Malone (discus) and Loree Smith (hammer), both of whom became NCAA champions and 2008 Olympians, even though neither was highly recruited out of high school. Next week Bedard will coach the U.S. women throwers at the Pan Am Junior Championships in Edmonton, Alberta.
“A lot of coaches with big budgets or big-name schools try to buy champions,” Smith said. “Brian does a great job of looking for potential, looking for the hardworking people you can mold and build from the ground up. There are kids who were walk-ons, and he turned them into All-Americans.”
Bedard’s Pan Am assignment could be a step toward coaching on an Olympic team, but in 1988 he was just a guy fresh out of college trying to figure out how to be a coach. He had been a decent discus thrower at CSU, undersized but passionate.
“My first year, I was coaching athletes that I was teammates with the year before, and that was an interesting dynamic,” said Bedard, 50. “You had to be a pretty confident guy to pull that off. I was confident way beyond my abilities. I just fudged it as I went.”
Coaching throws is a complex task because each event is highly technical and has little in common with the others. Bedard went to meets and studied veteran coaches. He asked questions, read technical manuals, went to clinics and eventually developed his own philosophies.
“There’s a mind-set with each throwing event. I try to get the kids into that framework,” said Bedard, who also is head track coach at CSU. “I want the discus to be really relaxed, more similar to a golf swing. Hitting a driver, everything has to happen in sequence. Shot put, there’s definitely more in motion, and I intentionally get the guys more fired up (emotionally).
“The javelin is a study in patience. You have to be super active with your lower body and dynamic down the runway. You have to be so disciplined, so relaxed, and wait on your feet to do the work. That’s just a real challenge from a mental standpoint, to not get overly excited.
“The hammer is a rhythm and buildup and orbit. With the length of the implement, 3½ feet long, it presents a lot of different problems.
“I still think I’m a work in progress, and I’m open to learning, trying to understand, still searching out new ideas, new ways to express the technique.”
Malone, 38, still competes in hopes of making a third Olympic team. He’s the throws coach at Colorado.
“Being able to see and develop talent is one of Coach Bedard’s strong assets,” Malone said. “If you look at who he’s turned into national champions — myself and Loree Smith — we weren’t people who came in as world beaters or blue-chip athletes. He really enjoys developing athletes.”
Smith, who came from a low-income, single-parent home, got a lot more from Bedard than an appreciation for the finer points of hammer throwing.
“College was a big change for me, and I wasn’t that far from falling into some bad decisions, or despair,” said Smith, who retired from track in 2012 and is headed to medical school soon. “It’s really easy to repeat cycles when you grow up a certain way. Bedard putting a personal investment in me helped mold me and keep me out of trouble, keep my head up. I definitely look at him as a father figure. I don’t think I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t met him.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer
