Curt Morgan on Buzz Gagne: Beating Big C at N.C. nationals
Curtis Morgan writes: As if bagging a national championship isn’t enough of a challenge (in the M65 javelin at the outdoor masters in Winston-Salem), first Buzz Gagne had to beat down the Big C as well. “They took my cancerous prostate out three years ago,” relates Buzz. “It was ‘supposed’ to be non-invasive, but in practice it took me two years to fully recover. But when I got my javelin mark back up to 50 meters — and nothing hurt! — I knew I was ready to compete again at the national level.”
Buzz Gagne rules, and the hoi polloi worship him! It’s the natural order of All Things Javelin. Photo by Shaaron Sellars
Curt continues:
Chucking the spear motivates Buzz to hie thee into the gym five days a week.
“I only practice actually throwing the javelin once a week; it’s all my body can take.” He also coaches high school throwers in his native New Hampshire (at Merrimack Valley HS), finding that “kids keep me young.”
Buzz threw 51.36m in N.C., a fantastic four-plus meters further than silver-medalist Ed Hearn, (handicapped as he was by still having to haul around his prostate).
So, there’s Buzz’s recipe for successful throwing: train hard, train youth, and, don’t get derailed by the Big Cancer train.
Photo Caption: Buzz Gagne rules, and the hoi polloi worship him! It’s the natural order of All Things Javelin. (Photo: Shaaron Sellars)
4 Responses
Just like Joe Greenberg and Mike Brown, Buzz Gagne is both legend and inspiration among Masters javelin throwers. It was very good to see BG at Wake Forest; the Force is with him.
Not only does he throw far, his encouragement goes a long way as well!
Thank you Buzz 🙂
I’ve been competing with and against Buzz for the last 10 years here in New England and can attest to his outstanding technique and distances, but also to the fact that he is a great guy as well. Always approachable, and with a fine eye for detail as well. His tips to me after our last competition together, resulted in a 5 meter improvement in my next meet. Looking forward to throwing with him again in 2015.
Buzz is truly a great guy and is always trying to helping others improve their javelin technique and distance. He gave me a couple of tips at Winston-Salem that I will attempting to use in the future, but I have the same problem he does; can’t throw very often any more. Sometimes, though as Yogi Berra said, “you can observe a lot just by watching.” At Nationals in the 65-69 group, I was not satisfied with my first 3 throws, all were a little under 30 meters. I noticed that both Buzz and Ed Hearn were really getting their throws up in the air. In fact Ed looked like he was trying to pierce the low-hanging clouds to make it rain. I finally got my 4th and 5th throws up higher and came close to 33 meters. Another secret to Buzz’s success is that he lets out truly world-class grunts/yells when he turns loose of the jav. I watched 6 of the men and women’s jav competitions at Winston-Salem and his vocal expression was the best (except maybe for Doc Watson).
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