Clutching a javelin in one hand and the tiny hand of her 3-year-old granddaughter in the other, Karen Huff prepares for competition.
The most important thing, she has discovered, is to gaze at a spot in the sky during the follow-through, but even before her first toss, her eyes are lifted toward the heavens.
”I like it when coaches tell throwers to keep their heads up,” says Huff, who competes Friday for her fifth TAC Master`s National Track and Field Championship title in the javelin in Spokane. ”If you don`t, they`ll knock you right down.”
She isn`t necessarily speaking about her opponents in the javelin; she is talking about life. Adversity has frequently visited Karen Huff and her family: son Michael, 28, an outfielder with the White Sox; daughter Malia, 22, a recent Dartmouth graduate; and son Matthew, 21, an outfielder on the Northwestern baseball team.
Sometimes the crisis passed by, as it did when Malia`s leukemia went into remission, or Michael turned to baseball after knee injuries ruined his football scholarship.
Other times it seemed to stop at their doorstep in Wilmette, especially when Karen`s husband, Bob, president and CEO of Bell and Howell, died in 1986. ”They shine through it all,” says Cubs catcher Joe Girardi, who lived with the Huffs in 1987. ”My guess is that Karen Huff gets her strength from her kids.”
These are the same kids who involuntarily interrupted her promising javelin career. After missing the 1960 Rome Olympics by just nine inches, Huff began training for the 1964 Games.
In 1962 she won the nationals with a throw of 158-4 1/4, which at the time was a Los Angeles Coliseum women`s record and broke a mark set by Babe Didrikson. She was eyeing the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, but Michael was born in 1963.
”The nine inches still haunts me,” she said. ”Every time the Olympics comes around I wish I would have been there.”
The javelin shoes went in the closet. She received her master`s degree in education, taught and coached track and field at Evanston High School and Northwestern, and focused on her family. Instead of throwing a javelin, she was tossing a baseball with Michael, Malia or Matthew.
It was her mother, Edith Mendyka, born and raised in Berlin, who inspired Huff to compete again. Edith also threw a javelin and competed for Germany in the `36 Berlin Olympics in the exhibition sport of team handball.
Edith competed in master`s events into her 70s, and Karen accompanied her mother to a competition in 1985. Karen won her age division in her first attempt and the competitive fire began to burn.
”We teased her a little when she started throwing again,” said Michael, ”but for me, the teasing was short. I always felt that (my birth) was responsible for getting between her dreams.”
Twenty-two years passed before she threw another spear competitively, but she wasted no time in getting back on track. Her fifth title would be her first as a 50-year-old. And although it is a little different these days-she throws about 90 feet, a little over half of her old efforts-she is more competitive than ever. And simply participating has helped her set new goals, made her feel younger and, more important, allowed her to play. This, she said, is her childhood.
”She`s like a kid somedays,” says Malia, while watching her mother compete in the Midwest regional and balancing 3-year-old Taylor, Michael`s daughter, on her shoulders. ”No older than her daughter.”
Wearing red Puma javelin spikes during competition, a white tank top and black shorts, the only thing that gives away that Huff is anywhere near 50 is a streak of gray in her brown curly hair.
She wears a hearing aid, but it is a result of asthma, which she suffered when she was 2 years old. She still managed to communicate with her father, however, who suffered a stroke and lost his speech also when she was 2.
She didn`t learn English until she was in kindergarten and lost most of her childhood taking care of the family. She wouldn`t have gone to college if the University of Hawaii hadn`t offered her the school`s first javelin scholarship.
”When I was 11 I weighed 59 pounds,” said Huff, who spent a year in a hospital for asthmatics in California when she was 10. ”My mother`s solution was to get me out on the track.”
Today, she gives back what she received by administering the Robert B. Huff Foundation, which was set up after her husband`s death, and hands out scholarships.
”Bob was an incredible motivator who set high standards and he always thought education was very important,” Huff said.
Girardi lived with the family while he was coping with his mother`s death and trying to make it out of the minor leagues.
”Mike has had a lot of adversity in his life but he gets through it,”
said Girardi. ”That comes from his mother. It`s a family who likes to give and knows that the rewards will come later. People can learn a lot from this family.”
Taylor Huff, Michael`s daughter and Karen`s first granddaughter, already is. Just before Karen is about to compete in a regional meet, Taylor breaks free from Malia and toddles over to her grandmother. ”I love you, I love you mawma!” she exclaims. And Karen wins the competition.
