No one is talking.
Kelly Busby starts her motion by swinging her left arm. Five. Four.
With a twist of her wrist she brings her arm across her body and swirls the 20-pound weight over her head like a cowboy getting ready to lasso a calf. Three. Two.
The intensity builds as she lowers the weight to her mid section and explodes into a final full-body twist. One. Zero.
The weight soars high in the air and Busby lets out a small grunt. It lands with a clang over 40 feet away as the chain connecting the metal handle and red canvas straps that cradle the weight collide.
“Nice throw, Kelly,” says her throwing coach John Berube.
But she’s not happy.
The 12th ranked women’s weight thrower in the country in Division III knows she can do better. Just a few days earlier, Busby broke the school record (her own) for the third time this season with a throw of 47 feet, 9 inches.
“She’s a real strong young lady,” says Berube of the 22-year-old Busby. “You have to be really strong and explosive in this event. She doesn’t spin three or four times like some people, she just pops one time and explodes.”
The event is weight throwing, the indoor equivalent of the hammer throw. The senior standout Busby is a co-captain on USM’s Track and Field team and may soon be an All-American. If she maintains her current status as one of the top 16 Division III throwers in the country, Busby will go to the nationals in March. The top eight competitors receive the prestigious All-American status.
But don’t ask her if she’s thinking about that. The accounting major with a political science minor has tougher competition. Herself.
She has “PRed” (broken personal bests) in almost every home meet this season.
“I’d usually PR (in previous years),” says Busby. “But by inches, not by feet.”
What’s different this year? She’s been filling out applications for law school and fighting a nagging back injury.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know why it’s happening,” she says. “But I’m not complaining. I just wish it could be a little further.”
And such is the way of Kelly Busby. She’s not easily satisfied and she’s a hard worker.
“She doesn’t baby you,” says a smiling teammate Melissa White, a freshman industrial technology major. “Sometimes she can be tougher than John (Berube).”
Berube says Busby’s back injury would have sidelined most athletes.
“The average human being probably wouldn’t even be able to do it,” he says. “But she’s so dedicated that she just won’t stop.”
Busby says she doesn’t know what drives her to be better. White says it’s just the nature of the sport.
“It is an individual team sport,” says White. “It’s you against the tape measure or the clock. I don’t have much of a chance to beat Kelly, but I can beat my record.”
The Biddeford native joined the USM Track and Field team four years ago as a freshman after having been a discus standout at Biddeford High School. In her time with the team, she’s seen participation in track and field at USM grow.
Berube says it might have something to do with the construction of the Costello Sports Complex.
The indoor space allows Busby and the 10 other throwers on the team to practice virtually year round for the sport with a season that almost never ends, beginning in October and ending almost 26 weeks later in April.
Once the team moves outside, Busby will throw the hammer, shot put and the discus.
But in this practice, it’s just the weight throw, and Berube wants to make sure her back stays healthy.
“Just seven throws today,” he says to Busby. “We need you rested.”
She looks annoyed, like seven throws isn’t the kind of workout she expected, but says OK and starts to stretch.
Executive Editor Steve Peoples can be contacted at: [email protected]