Your Cart is Empty
Please share the story and support Geezer Jock™.
By Ray Glier
Ed Davis, 73, was struggling to find coherence between fun and ambition early in the 2025 outdoors Masters track season. He was chasing an American record for throwing the discus set in 2007 by Jay Silvester and Ed had mutated his fun sport into a quagmire, simply objectified it, and made it an overbearing thing.
It was an “artificial” goal, he said of chasing Silvester’s 50-meter heave. Davis, who now throws 48 meters, was so pressurized he could not throw the discus 40 meters in the early spring of 2025. He was exasperated.
“There was a moment, actually, at a track meet, one of our local meets, and I just stopped in the middle of a competition,” Davis said, “and I looked at everybody and said, ‘Guys, I got to tell you something, it's like I've forgotten how to throw the discus’.”
What’s that? You’ve been “there”? Many Geezer Jocks have turned themselves inside out with goals and ended up “there”. This story is about how you get out of “there”, if you want to.
Tip No. 1:
“I was working too hard to get there,” Davis said of chasing Silvester’s throw of 50.27 meters, “and it was taking the fun out of it for me, and so I decided to set that aside.
“I established a good workout routine. I have good workouts on Tuesday and Thursday, both in the gym with the trainer, and I throw 24 throws every Tuesday, and 24 throws every Thursday. Then we have a competition with a small group of us every Saturday, and so that's a great routine.”
The tyranny of the chase lifted. Davis had purpose in the process.
By October, 2025, Ed was No. 1 in the world at 46.75 meters and he finished No. 1.
In 2026, Davis is currently ranked No. 1 in the world in the discus with a 48-meter throw on Mother’s Day.
“I really enjoy throwing discus, I enjoy the process of throwing discus, I enjoy the people I've met throwing discus, so I decided to set that record aside as a goal," he said. "I don't really care anymore. I just want to throw well and improve.”
And here is tip No. 2, which came at the 2025 track meet where Ed felt lost.
“(All the throwers) there knew I was a 40-plus meter thrower, and I wasn't getting there,” Davis said. “Their help was less about ‘fix this piece of your technique, fix this little thing’, and more about, ‘We know you can do this, and we're here to support you. You tell us what you need’. I was wonderfully supported.”
“He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”___Hunter S. Thompson.
Davis, a novelist after a successful 40-year career in business, knew when to seek counsel.
Here is more advice. Be you.
“I've stopped trying to force my form to what the accepted standard is,” Davis said.
The standard is American Valarie Carolyn Allman-Sion, 31, who won the gold medal in the discus in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2024 Paris Olympics. Val may go down as the greatest of all time as far as the mechanics of the discus throw. Davis studied the form of Val the virtuoso.
Big mistake.
“One of the things that's frequently taught is to have a very long straight sweep leg coming out of the back of the ring and that just isn't natural for me, and in fact it forces me to do some things physically that may lead to some injury,” Davis said. “I've stopped concentrating on form as much.”
What Ed has done instead is gotten some outside coaching.
“I signed up with a group called Throws University, and I can send them a video every week. They analyze the video once a month,” Davis said. “Then we get together for video conference, and we talk about how I can improve my form.”
The online gurus also designed a weightlifting plan for Ed. And…he started taking creatine. Discus is not just mechanics. There is some beast in the equation.
Here is Ed in slow motion.
“So I've just been enjoying this process of getting better and, as it turns out, I'm getting pretty close to chasing Jay now,” Davis said. “I'm sneaking up on him.”
What could go wrong? Fatigue? Injury? The angst of the chase reawakening?
Ed has tips for those Masters trapdoors.
When Davis goes to Daegu, South Korea, this summer for the World Masters Athletics championships, 5,750 miles from his home in Glen Ellen, Ca., he will do ONE event. The discus.
He will be asked why he doesn’t pick up that little cannonball, and enter the shot put. What about javelin? I mean, geez, the man is taking a 20-hour plane ride…for one event.
“The truth is, I don't know if I'd be any good at those throws,” Davis said. “And the prospect of me hurting myself to try to learn to do that is way too high. So, rather than risk that, I would rather take pleasure and satisfaction in the thing I do know how to do rather than risk the whole deal by trying to throw a javelin or to throw a shot.”
Will being so close to Silvester’s record suck all the fun out of the trip? After all, Davis said, he has “tanked” at previous world championships because he has heaped pressure on himself.
This is the tip Ed holds tightest.
“It's fun to be number one, but nothing beats a well-thrown discus where you know the instant it leaves your hand that you've done it right,” he said. “There is just pure pleasure in that.”
Please support Geezer Jock. It's still FREE, but think about buying a tee-shirt or hat.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
