Thrown into it: Kaylee Franklin takes to javelin, earns medal at AAU Junior Olympics
Aug. 18—Kaylee Franklin was set to throw the discus for her club track and field team when the event was suddenly canceled during a 2019 meet near Baltimore.
Scrambling to find something for one of his top young athletes to do, Frederick Striders coach Wayne Hilliard told her to enter the javelin.
"I was terrified," said Franklin, a 16-year-old junior at Middletown High School. "It was this long, six-foot pointy stick. I had no idea what I was doing. What could go wrong, right?"
Hilliard instructed her to just run and throw it, and that's exactly what she did.
Calling upon her years of experience as a softball center fielder, Franklin tossed it as far as 69 feet, which was good enough to win the event.
"There was absolutely no technique and no form to it that first time," she said. "It would never have gone that well had I not done softball."
These days, Franklin actively seeks out 200 feet of open space where she can practice the javelin.
It is not an event at high school meets during the indoor or outdoor seasons. And, by rule, she is not allowed to throw it on school grounds due to the safety risk.
So, she often resorts to the spacious backyard of her mother, Tracey, to get in workouts.
Two weeks ago at the AAU Junior Olympics in Greensboro, North Carolina, Franklin placed sixth out of 87 competitors in the javelin for the Lightning Running Club, based in Frederick County, with a personal-best throw of 110 feet, 11 inches.
"The fact she was able to perform so well, given how little she is able to practice, tells you what you need to know about her," Lightning coach Bill Gerhold said. "I mean, my God, it wasn't exactly chopped liver she was throwing against."
The top eight finishers in each event received medals atop an awards podium in a mini-Olympics style ceremony.
"It was really cool," Franklin said.
Her performance was part of a successful AAU Junior Olympics meet for the Lightning Running Club, according to Gerhold, who heads the organization. There were 15 personal records set by club athletes over the course of the eight-day meet.
"That's really what you are looking for," Gerhold said.
Jonas Sparks, a freshman at Urbana High School, placed fourth in the pole vault for 14-year-old boys with a height of 11 feet. He was also eighth in the long jump (17 feet, 9 1/2 inches).
Meanwhile, two of Franklin's teammates on the Middletown High track team, Hayley Lucido (ninth out of 83 in the 800-meter run) and Ava Allen (10th out of 77 in the triple jump), performed considerably well.
Following her performance, Franklin said her inbox started filling up with emails from interested college coaches.
She knows the javelin represents her best chance to compete on the next level. But she also realizes it limits her options since not every college track team offers the event.
Last summer, she missed the AAU Junior Olympics because the high school season ran late into June due to the pandemic, and she missed participating in the qualifying meets for the javelin.
She could have given up her high school events and tried to qualify. But she enjoyed running on Middletown's talented 4x400 relay team too much to do that.
The setup is not advantageous since practicing the javelin is forbidden in a high school setting.
In a normal year, there are only two weeks separating the end of the high school season and the AAU district qualifying meet. And to qualify for regionals, Franklin would have to perform well at the district meet. And to qualify for the AAU Junior Olympics, she would have to perform well at regionals.
So, with sparse opportunities to practice, Franklin has very little time to find her top form in the javelin every summer.
"It's pretty hard," she said.
But she's not really losing sleep over her future in the sport. After all, she was never supposed to be here in the first place.
"Coach kind of just threw me into this event to see what happens," Franklin said. "It's worked out pretty well."
Follow Greg Swatek on Twitter: @greg_swatek
