Boomerang athletes glad the U.S. finally coming around to their sport

Wearing cleats and a softball glove covered with a mustard-yellow gardening glove, he pulls out a zippy tri-blader and sends it spinning into blue sky like a whirlybird. Then he lies on the grass and catches it with his feet.


	One of the best boomerang throwers in the world, Seattle's Steve Kavanaugh recently broke the "trick catch" world record with 279 points. Using part of his "starting lineup," Kavanaugh hurls a tri-blade boomerang. Renee C. Byer / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Steve Kavanaugh -- native Seattleite, bread deliveryman, Evergreen State College graduate -- is a 'rang man.

He and his cohorts call their sport "the thinking man's Frisbee."

Boomerang throwing is a fusion of art, science and sport that stretches back an estimated 15,000 years when Australian Aborigines created its predecessor, the throwing stick, to hunt prey. No one knows precisely when the returning boomerang developed or how.

And despite all our scientific knowledge and technological know-how, we still don't understand exactly why a boomerang journeys back.

That mystique is part of the enduring appeal of the spellbinding little flier.

It's also little known that there is a national championship, a U.S. National Boomerang Team and a World Cup, or championship, every two years.

"If you say, 'I'm on the U.S. National Boomerang Team,' people go, 'What?' It's like being on the U.S. basketweaving team," quips Chet Snouffer, president of the Delaware, Ohio-based United States Boomerang Association.

Several hundred thousand people throw boomerangs recreationally and about 150 to 200 people regularly play in tournaments, Snouffer said. A handful, like Kavanaugh, 33, a U.S. team member, compete at the international level.

The sport remains largely an amateur pastime, with prize money never snaking above a few hundred dollars, and sponsorship is a rarity.

When Snouffer, 45, a 12-time U.S. champion and three-time world champion, teaches boomerang skills to school kids, they ask if he's rich.

"No, I'm not on a Wheaties box. No, I don't drive up in a BMW or have a big endorsement check," he replies amicably. "But I say I'm rich because I'm doing what I love to do and I've been to places I'd never have seen otherwise."

A 'rang thang

Times have changed in the 'rang world. New technology and better designs have made boomerangs easier to throw.

When Kavanaugh, who delivers bread for the Essential Baking Co., tried throwing, it took him three weeks to learn to catch it when it returned. His girlfriend, Suzanne Lentz, says it took her six weeks of perseverance before the boomerang even came back.

Today, most people can throw a returner within 10 minutes and make a catch within half an hour.

A boomerang is a flying stick that is flat on one side and raised, with carved airfoils, on the other. Generally, it's thrown vertically, then flattens out to a horizontal spin before landing. If you're right-handed, it travels counterclockwise. Lefties send them in a clockwise circuit.

A two-blade looks like a soft "L" or crazy 7 shape. A boomerang can have three wings for a tri-blade or four for a quad. Some designers make models with more wings.

They are made of composite plastics, aircraft-quality birch and plywood, Kevlar, carbon, fiberglass and more, for different types of flight and competition.

In general, boomerangs work because of two principles: aerodynamic lift and gyroscopic precession. The boomerang's wings are airfoils, like an airplane wing. Thrown vertically, the wings cartwheel end over end, with the wing at the top of the spin traveling faster. That gyroscopic torque causes the boomerang to turn 90 degrees and ultimately return.

Boomerangs can be endlessly tweaked and tuned for better performance. Many of Kavanaugh's boomerangs are modified with lead tape, Velcro, drilled holes, a coin or other devices to create weight and drag.

But most people are content to watch them whiz through the air and come back.

Kavanaugh recently took his boomerangs on a visit to some preschool children in Bellevue. "You forget to tell them why and how it flies," he says. "You just tell them it's magic and you're going to teach them how to do magic."

It takes arm strength similar to delivering a baseball pitch from the mound to the plate, so many kids can throw starting around age 10. It's a sport that most can do for a lifetime.

Even for world-class, experienced throwers like Kavanaugh, a boomerang can seem like it has a mind of its own. "The first throw of the day is always dangerously erratic," he says.

Sometimes, observers flinch as they watch a boomerang hurtling toward its thrower.


	Steve Kavanaugh practices one of his trick catches at Green Lake. He learned the sport at The Evergreen State College from Michael "Gel" Girvin. Renee C. Byer / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

No to worry. "You have to get really good to be able to hit yourself," says Kavanaugh, known especially for his trick catch skills.

But the novice needs a lot of space.

"It's pretty easy to hit other people when you're starting out," said Lentz.

Boomerang enthusiast Will Herlan of Redmond prefers to throw when no one else is on the field, and he recommends wearing goggles because sometimes the whirligig swoops toward the eyes.

But he says there's nothing to fear. "I've been hit numerous times and most boomerangs weigh two to three ounces -- you're not going to get hurt," Herlan said.

The scene

"Boomeranging is the least organized sport I know," says Herlan. "There are no firm numbers anywhere. People just come out of the woodwork."

Some even call it a loner sport.

Money flows out of pocket as competitors travel around the world, throwing at tourneys. But they roam in a friendly, passionate sphere where like-minded compatriots share couch space, car space and throwing advice.

"People that you've never met before but e-mailed with will pick you up at the airport and put you up," Kavanaugh says.

The main cradle of Western Washington boomerang talent was The Evergreen State College in Olympia in the mid- to late '80s. It was there that Michael "Gel" Girvin started a club and taught hundreds of fellow students, including Kavanaugh.

Girvin, who has a degree in "radness," was struck by the flying stick's metaphor for life -- what you put out comes back to you.

"The very first day I went out and threw -- in fact, the very first throw -- I saw this beautifully colorful stick start to turn across the blue sky and the green trees, and that was it," said Girvin, who lives in Oakland, Calif.

Since leaving Evergreen, Girvin has taught thousands of people around the world to toss a boomerang.

Some of them will throw next June at the national championship at Mountain Meadows Farm in North Bend.

Men and women

It's no secret that throwing 'rangs is largely a male activity, especially at the competitive level. But it's a sports-world anomaly -- men and women compete against each other.

"Men and women compete equally in this sport and that's really appealing to me," says Betsylew Miale-Gix, 42, the only woman on the U.S. national team. "Nobody believed a woman could be one of the best throwers in the world. But I have a stubborn streak. And I'm a very competitive person."

In all, less than 5 percent of elite throwers are women.

Miale-Gix of Brier, north of Seattle, is considered the best female thrower in the world. But more important to her is being the sixth-highest-ranked thrower in the country.

Thirteen years ago, a man took her throwing on a second date in the snow in Wenatchee. That man, Will Gix, became her husband and, together, they're the only husband-wife unit on the national team.

Another up-and-coming husband-wife team is Karen and Clay Dawson of Bellevue.

Karen Dawson, taught by her husband, was totally new to the sport in July when she set a women's distance world record throw of 124 meters.

World records don't preoccupy her, though.

"I have the Dawson family record. My kids know that mom beat dad. That's all I care about," she joked.

Lentz, taught by Girvin when both were at the Chicago Art Institute, is putting together an all-woman team for the World Cup in Germany next August. She says a record number of five women plan to attend the U.S. national team trials in Nagshead, N.C., in April.

On the wind-swept dunes at Kittyhawk, they'll throw the flying airfoils 99 years after the historic flight of the Wright brothers.

And that seems the perfect venue for boomerangs.

"It's kind of how humanity learned aerodynamics," Kavanaugh says. "In some ways, they're the precursor to the airplane."

COMPETITIVE EVENTS

Accuracy: Points scored for how close the boomerang lands in or near a 2-meter radius bull�s-eye. >Fast Catch: The time it takes to throw and catch five boomerangs. World record is 14.6 seconds.
Endurance: Most number of throws and catches in five minutes. World record is 80.
Maximum Time Aloft: Longest hangtime for a specialty boomerang.
Aussie Round: A combination of distance, accuracy and catching.

Most tournaments have novice, intermediate and advanced divisions. All boomerangs in competition must travel a minimum of a 20-meter circle. Laser range finders are used to check distance, and competitors usually score each other at tournaments. There are team events that are variations on the individual disciplines.

FUN FACTS

The world record for long distance with a full return is 238 meters (over 780 feet or 2.5 football fields).

Germany has won the last three World Cup events. But the U.S. won seven consecutive championships before that.

Michael Girvin, formerly of Olympia, and Steve Kavanaugh of Seattle, threw and caught a boomerang more than 800 times each before they got tired.

An Ohio man threw a boomerang that hovered on thermals for 17 minutes in the air before he caught it. But the world record in a competition is 104.87 seconds.

MORE INFORMATION

Sadly, area throwers say there isn't a good local place to buy boomerangs since Great Winds kite shop closed in Pioneer Square. So they turn to the Web.

For information a good overall site with links, try www.usba.org.
For further description on how boomerangs fly, see www.howstuffworks.com/boomerang6.htm.
Some manufacturers include: www.leadingedgeboomerangs.com; www.coloradoboomerangs.com.
A good boomerang chat group is: groups.yahoo.com/group/boomerangtalk.
If you want to learn more from a local thrower, e-mail Betsylew Miale-Gix at betwil@att.net. [Note: this email address has been corrected.]