To most Americans, the term “March Madness” means one thing–an excuse to watch basketball on their phones instead of working. To my friend Pat Trofimuk and me, it means something entirely different –a chance to watch throwing events on our phones instead of working.
That’s right, folks. The 2025 Indoor Track and Field Championships will take place this weekend in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Pat and I will be following it closely, and we recommend that you do, too. Here’s why.
The Facility
Apparently, it’s quite a lovely place. It also looked, for a while, like it was going to be a factor in the competition.
According to the worldwide web, the Virginia Beach Sports Center was designed to feature 117,000 square feet of column-free, flexible space, a 200-meter banked track, seating for 5,000 spectators, concession areas, skybox meeting rooms, and ample parking.
What it lacked was a top-notch throwing ring.
Shocking, I know.
Word has it that the concrete ring as originally installed at the VBSC was rough and super slow. One of the bolts holding down the toeboard also snapped in the middle of a competition earlier this year, forcing the men’s and women’s shot to be contested from a portable wooden ring.
You’ll never get a throws coach to openly disparage the condition of a facility, especially at a meet like the NCAA Championships where the focus is more on placing and less on producing a PB. Everyone, after all, throws from the same ring.
But I’m not an NCAA coach, so I’ll go ahead and state the obvious. Virginia Beach would not be hosting these championships had they installed a crappy track.
Such is the never-ending story of our sport. If you watched the shot comps at last summer’s Olympics, you probably noticed that once rain began to fall, so did the putters. With the men, Ryan Crouser and Rajindra Campbell both got off nice throws before the ring got wet, and Joe Kovacs and Payton Otterdahl each threw their best in the final round, but aside from that, rounds four, five and six featured seventeen fouls in twenty-four attempts as the competition–which should have featured three guys hammering away at the 23-meter line–devolved into a contest of who could make it through a throw without breaking their neck.
Could the organizers in Paris have installed a ring smooth enough to encourage big throws but grippy enough to give folks a chance in the rain? Absolutely. And it would have cost next to nothing compared to the three million Euro they laid out to install a state-of-the-art Mondo track. But they did not care about the quality of the throwing ring as long as runners were able to post fast times and give everybody a good show on the oval. It was the same story in Tokyo in 2021. The meet organizers there paid millions for a Mondo track surface, which they also used for the javelin runway. Unfortunately, in hot weather the Mondo surface does not hold up under the pressure that javelin throwers exert as they slam their block leg down at the end of each throw. That had a big effect on the competition, and probably kept the men’s favorite–Johannes Vetter–from contending for a medal.
It looked like it was going to be a similar story in Virginia Beach. The runners would compete on a high-quality banked track, while the throwers would make due with a lousy ring when it was easily within the power of the meet organizers and the NCAA to fix it.
And then, a miracle.
Jerry Clayton–longtime coach at Auburn, Michigan, and LSU–is now an NCAA official. Over the past few weeks, various throws coaches reached out to him asking for help in getting the Virginia Beach ring modified, and…he made it happen.
All it took was water, some kind of stone or brick, and someone who knew what the hell they were doing.
Regardless of the method used, it appears that the Virginia Beach ring will be in optimal shape this weekend. Bombs may ensue.
Women’s Weight
Friday, March 14th 2:15pm EST
Trof and I agree that Anthonett Nabwe is the favorite here. She produced an NCAA-leading 24.22m at the Big 10 championships two weeks ago after posting marks of 23.56m and 23.21m earlier this season.
Anthonett was attracted to the University of Minnesota at first because of the thriving Liberian community in the Twin Cities. Her family immigrated to Jamestown, North Dakota, around the time she entered eighth grade, and as fate would have it the local high school had a serious throws coach whose daughter had competed at Iowa. That coach tipped off the Gophers’ Peter Miller that Anthonett might be special, and he was not kidding.
According to Miller, she is “the most powerful human being I’ve been around, male or female.” Anthonett tossed the weight 17.80m while red-shirting during her first year on campus, then demonstrated that power by improving to 23.36m while winning the 2024 Big 10 meet.
She also broke the school record in the shot put last year, while enduring the kinds of ups and downs common among young throwers. Those experiences, according to Miller, have helped her learn how to “manage her nervous system” in the big meets.
That’s good news, because she’ll face some stout competition in Virginia Beach.
Cal’s Giovanna Meeks arrived on campus this winter as a mid-year transfer from Vanderbilt with a PB of 23.04m. Coach Mo Saatara immediately put her through a “crash course” in his approach to weight throwing, and Giovanna responded by breaking 23.50m at three different comps so far this season. It will likely take more than that to win on Friday, but Mo describes her as a “hell of a competitor” so don’t be surprised if she challenges for the title.
Another contender will be Shelby Frank of Texas Tech, who finished second last year while representing Minnesota. She arrived in Lubbock with a PB of 24.09m and tons of big meet experience, which should serve her well this weekend as she tries to help the Red Raiders to a top-three spot in the race for the team title. Some might call that added pressure, but for a veteran like Shelby it might give her the juice she needs to steal the win.
A couple of years ago, Wisconsin’s Chloe Lindeman had the following conversation with coach Dave Astrauskas.
Dave: Chloe, I think you should stop throwing the shot put. Weight and hammer are the way to go for you.
Chloe: Coach, what are you talking about? I’m a shot putter.
Dave: We all think we are a certain thing until we are not.
Since that fateful day, Chloe has won a Big 10 weight title and upped her PB to 23.77m. That throw came in 2023, when Chloe was using one wind and three turns. Earlier this season, she switched to a slap start and four turns, which Astrauskas hopes will allow her to carry a little more ball speed into the finish. Chloe is a strong competitor, a notorious “gripper and ripper” who has often relied on her violent finish to make the ball go. If her new technique allows her to find the right balance between aggression and smoothness, she too will be in the mix.
If, as seems likely, it takes 23.50m or more to win, the competition should come down to one of these four ladies.
Let me close by mentioning an up-and-comer currently representing the University of Illinois. Phethisang Makhethe is a native of South Africa who transferred from New Mexico State after winning Western Athletic Conference titles in the hammer and weight. Under the tutelage of JC Lambert and DeAnna Price, she has broken 23 meters on two occasions this season, and should be a contender for the 2026 title.
Men’s Weight
Friday, March 14th 6:05pm EST
During a meet at the Air Force Academy back in 2023, Wyoming coach Paul Barrett was watching the weight throw when a large young man representing Chadron State College stepped into the ring. Barrett remembers looking over at his head coach and saying, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for. A big ol’ hoss with power!”
A few weeks later, that hoss–his name is Daniel Reynolds–entered the portal, and in 2024 arrived in Laramie with a thrower’s body, a sprinter’s speed, a 4.0 GPA and, according to Barrett, the power of an elite Olympic lifter. He also carried some bad technical habits that had prevented him from exploring his potential.
John Smith told me recently that it is extremely difficult to change bad habits in the hammer and weight once they’ve become ingrained in a kid. Last year, Daniel and Coach Barrett did their best and got him up to 21.46m, but both knew there was lots left in the tank.
The secret to tapping his huge capacity? Addition by subtraction.
According to Barrett, using three turns in the weight caused Daniel to “scoop his finish” and lose his balance as he released the implement. Last fall, they took some throws with a heavy weight using two turns and…Viola!
“He killed it in the fall using two turns,” says Barrett. “And he killed it again when we got inside and used two turns with the thirty-pound weight.”
This winter, Daniel has PR’d every meet, posting a best of 25.06m at the Mountain West Championships. That’s the second best throw in NCAA history, and Coach Barrett says Reynolds can go farther. “We’ve been throwing a lot of heavy weights all season,” he explained. “So he really hasn’t felt the competition ball very well yet. But lately we’ve been using the thirty-five in practice, so he should have a nice feel at NCAA’s.”
That 25.06m makes Daniel the prohibitive favorite this weekend with one possible caveat. For the first time in his career, he’ll carry the weight of great expectations into the ring and, as with Anthonett Nabwe, it will all come down to how well he can manage his nerves and control that Porsche engine of his. And according to Trof, to whom I always defer in matters of the weight, Reynolds’ two-turn technique is tailor-made to hold up in high-pressure situations.
If Reynolds falters, look for Trey Knight of CSUN to fill the void. Knight was second last year with a toss of 24.14m and this season upped his PB to 24.87m. The high school record-holder in the hammer, Trey has been in plenty of big competitions and, according to his coach Dan Lange, possesses a healthy outlook about the sport.
The two originally joined forces at USC where Lange says they learned a lot about maintaining perspective.
“We have,” Lange explained in a conversation last spring, “a process of doing the sport in a way that is healthy and positive. At a Power Five program, it’s easy to fall into a pattern where scoring and winning becomes a transactional obligation. At CSUN, Trey was able to rediscover the joy in throwing, and we really don’t talk about scoring in nationals. We just work at trying to be exceptional at what we are doing.”
If Knight does, in fact, keep his chill, look for him to put some heat on Reynolds.
Ryan Johnson, a midyear transfer from Eastern Michigan to Iowa, might also throw some kerosene on the fire. He did not compete at the 2024 Indoor meet, but took fourth in the hammer last summer at the World U20 Championships, and is unlikely to wilt in the spotlight.
Tarik Robinson-O’Hagan is also no shrinking violet. The former World U20 shot put champ, Tarik is defending NCAA champ indoors and out in the shot. He finished fifth in the NCAA weight last year with a toss of 22.97m, and hit 24.35m at the recent SEC Championships. His coach, John Smith, told me that Tarik’s practice numbers are better than a year ago, and he will be ready to rumble on Friday before defending his shot title on Saturday. If it sounds like a lot to ask a kid to bring his A game to both events, remember that Tarik posted an outdoor shot PB of 20.98m along with a hammer PB of 74.54m at last summer’s Olympic Trials.
And don’t count out Harvard’s Kenneth Ikeji, who won this event last year with a toss of 24.32m. His best so far in 2025 is 23.62m, but he certainly knows how to dial it up under pressure.
Finally, Virginia’s Jeremiah Nubbe has posted three comps over 23.50m after transferring from Texas in the fall. Nubbe is currently coached by Brandon Amo, who helped Ikeji to an NCAA hammer title in 2023. Can Coach Amo create another magic moment with Nubbe? We shall see!
Stay tuned for the shot put preview, coming soon!