Thrower wants one more shot

Find some North Carolina students who’ve seen Laura Gerraughty around campus. Show them her picture and ask if they know who it is.

Odds are they won’t say she’s a three-time NCAA shot put champion or one of the youngest shot putters at the 2004 Olympics.

No, it’s a safe bet that they’ll recognize her as something entirely different: “the girl with the slingshot.”

And why not? After all, Gerraughty’s an expert in launching stuff — namely shots, hammers, discuses and 35-pound weights.

But she doesn’t use the “slingshot” to fling those things. And despite joking that she’ll be “the life of the pool party now that I can launch water balloons,” it’s not intended for that, either.

No matter how it appears, the thing’s not a slingshot or water balloon launcher at all — it’s a medical device. Gerraughty wears it to try to correct a condition that forced her to quit throwing the shot earlier this year. It’s a condition that could force America’s shot put queen, at the tender age of 21, to abdicate her throne forever.

Gerraughty’s rise to shot put royalty began when she shattered the national prep record in the girls’ shot put by almost two feet as a high school thrower in Nashua, N.H.

Still, a curious stiffness stemming from the constant bending and snapping of her wrists in gymnastics — the sport she gave up for track at age 15 — lingered in Gerraughty’s ligaments and tendons.

The pesky condition remained when she enrolled at UNC, though she thought nothing of it until two months later. That’s when bone spurs began to form in the fingers on Gerraughty’s right hand after throwing coach Brian Blutreich asked her to alter her shot put technique.

But because “she trains like a maniac,” as UNC head coach Dennis Craddock put it, the Sultana of Shot kept throwing — and winning.

Since 2003, she’s won nine of the 11 ACC titles for which she’s competed, and she’s set or broken her own school records 19 separate times in four different events. Oh, and her personal best in the shot? That’s the top mark in collegiate history.

“Laura has done things that no other athlete has done (at UNC),” Craddock said. “She is without question the best one for her age that we’ve had come through here.”

Considering Gerraughty is one of only a handful of Tar Heels ever to compete in the Olympics while still in college, that’s not hard to believe.

“(Shot put) was the event (at the 2004 games),” said Jeri Daniels-Elder, the U.S. women’s throwing coach. “They were the stars, and it was incredible.”

But, alas, stardom didn’t equal success. Gerraughty’s top throw left her more than six feet short of a finals berth, even though her personal best would have placed her second in the prelims and fourth in the medal round.

So why the discrepancy? Most of it, she said, had to do with the incredible time demands she encountered in preparing for the Olympics. Part of it can surely be chalked up to tight nerves. But maybe, just maybe, some of it was the result of another kind of tightness: the one in her wrists.

For the record, Gerraughty insists the condition wasn’t a factor, and Daniels-Elder said that if it was bothering her, “she never indicated it to me.”

But just four months later, during Winter Break, the nagging problem finally exploded into a full-blown catastrophe.

“I stopped throwing (the shot),” Gerraughty said. “I called (Blutreich) — I felt so bad — and was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

The best shot putter in the country had been betrayed by her own body, those lingering bone spurs finally leaving her unable to cock her wrist, let alone heave a shot 50-plus feet.

And, in what was the track gods’ cruelest trick, Gerraughty retained the full ability to throw a discus, a hammer and a 35-pound weight. Heck, she could’ve thrown a baseball if she wanted. Anything but the shot.

“I can’t put the shot to my neck,” Gerraughty explained. “I physically can’t bend (my wrist) back far enough.

“Originally, when we saw the doctors they were like, ‘There’s nothing we can do for you,’ so Coach Craddock said, ‘Well, why don’t you just keep competing (in your other events) and be done?’”

But the more Craddock mulled it over, the more he realized redshirting her this spring was a better option.

“The thought that overrode everything else was, ‘Look how much she’s done for our program,’” Craddock said. “Whatever Laura needs to finish up her career, that’s what I want to see happen to her.”

Gerraughty agreed to sit out the outdoor season, cautiously hoping that the break would buy her enough time to fix the problem. So far, though, her efforts have been fruitless.

“I’m still where I was before,” Gerraughty said. “I’m pretty much through with all the traditional western medicine, (but) we still have some alternative therapies to try.

“I put up a message on throwers’ Web sites — ‘Hey, anybody ever have this before?’ Unfortunately, most people e-mailed me back and said, ‘I’ve had this, and I had to stop throwing.’”

And if the prospect of abandoning what you do best is a terrifying feeling, imagine how you’d feel if that thing was something you did better than anyone else in the country.

“I was definitely in therapy, seeing a sports psychologist to try and figure it out,” Gerraughty said. “I’ve used all the support systems available to me in trying to figure out how to handle it. The pendulum has definitely swung both ways. I was really optimistic … then it was on to just total despair.”

So where does she go from here? Gerraughty recently had surgery to remove the bone spurs, and if the alternative approach works, Blutreich said he thinks she’ll be able to make a full recovery.

But if she can’t pull off a successful comeback, at least one person thinks Gerraughty can remain at the apex of American track.

“I really, really think that her future is in the hammer throw,” Daniels-Elder said. “I always thought she could be the next great American hammer thrower. … She could be as good as she wants to be.”

So even if Gerraughty never again throws a shot, she could still have the opportunity to drop the hammer on her competition — literally.

And if hammer throwing doesn’t work out either, Gerraughty could always lobby the Olympics to include one more event: water balloon launching.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.