Kansas' Own, Nation's Best

Matt Byers and Johann Swanepoel, Kansas’ own and two of the top javelin throwers in the nation, highlight this month’s state track meet with a great rivalry. Wichita East High’s Byers set the 6A state meet record last May only to watch Swanepoel break it on his next throw to win the gold. Dyestat, which compiles a continuous list of the top high school track and field marks in the nation, has ranked Byers and Swanepoel’s throws in the top five the past two years. But Byers and Swanepoel’s tales go beyond the tape.
 

Byers will complete a journeyman prep experience May 29 at the state track meet in his final high school competition. After growing up in the Maize school district while his dad, Brian, led the Friends University football program, Matt jumped (to be on the same page with his dad) into USD 259, the district in which Brian had first become a head football coach at South High in the mid-1980s and now toils at East High.
 

“My dad has always been my coach,” Matt says. Brian handles East High’s throwing program – which is basically Matt – and acts as a constant mentor and personal trainer, moving their sessions together to Cessna Stadium during the week and on the weekends. “I left behind a ton of friends at Maize, but I just wanted to be with my dad.”
 

Matt attaches to the front end of most of his statements “My dad and I” or “Me and my dad.” They are of one mind. “He never pushed me. He said, if you’re comfortable going somewhere, we’ll go there. If not, we’ll stay.”
 

They went to East in 2007 and joined Arthur Brown (linebacker) and Bryce Brown (running back). With the Browns doing what they do, Matt orchestrating the offense at quarterback, and a highly successful former college head coach for a decade installing structure, the Blue Aces were given a green light. East will win its first state title since 1983, the thought flashed across minds. The City League’s state title drought will end in 2007.
 

After the Aces’ 5-0 start and top-five state ranking were dashed by Kapaun, 28-6, Derby and Southeast shut East down in district play. That winter, Byers hit the hardcourt, only to suffer similar disappointment. A star-studded cast, for which he played a central support role, lost in the state semifinals to Southeast. 
 

Father and son zeroed in on the 2008 state track meet after a year of team shortcomings. “Basketball and football are so intense,” says Matt, who gets inside himself before throws. He finds his own space, jogs out some calisthenics and envisions the throw, toddling down an imaginary runway and whipping around his arm, like a kid who thinks he’s Ozzie Smith and that no one else is around. Throwing is not a grind. “Individually, you have goals, but I don’t practice with a team for hours everyday. I’m more laid-back before I throw.”
 

He lifts weights three times a week, and throws three times a week. He didn’t even touch a javelin between last summer and this spring. As with many track and field events, the javelin throw is more a spring showcase for year-round athletes than a specialized sport. Pure athletes, possessing both natural talent and acumen for imitating proper technique, excel at the javelin.

But one other athlete excelled just a bit more than Byers at state last year. Like Byers, Johann Swanepoel’s Spartan-like throws are a byproduct of his athleticism and keen eye rather than incessant practice and obsession with the sport. But the rest of their stories are like night and day.
 

In his fourth year removed from home – Petersburg, South Africa – where his native language was Afrikaans, the Shawnee Mission South High junior Swanepoel focuses still on his main sports, cricket and rugby. In Kansas City, he found and joined a Pakistani men’s cricket team and is a member of the Kansas City Blues rugby club.
 

Late in seventh grade, Swanepoel’s cricket coach told him he should take up the javelin. He did so and continues to throw, just because he is good at it. “I just do whatever everyone tells me to do,” says Swanepoel, who is a three-sport athlete of an entirely different kind.
 

In early spring, he was invited to play in international matches in Boulder, Colorado and Atlanta for USA Rugby’s U-18 team. At tryouts in Denver this summer, he hopes to be drafted up to the U-20 national team. He agrees with his parents when they tell him he should be an American Eagle, a member of the men’s national team. “I was raised to have respect for all people and to do what my elders tell me to do.”
 

While Byers picked the javelin back up the day after basketball season ended, Swanepoel put if off to early April, waiting until after the U-18’s match in Atlanta against England. His first time out this year, he threw 209 feet – though it’s not intended here to portray him as casual or someone for whom success doesn’t matter or isn’t appreciated.
 

“In football, the kids yell and scream. They are adrenaline jockeys,” says Swanepoel, who upon arrival state-side naturally tacked on the American derivative of rugby to his athletics slate. “Our rugby coaches always taught us to be relaxed and have a cool head to play well.”
 

“There (in South Africa), kids take sports more seriously,” he continues, at first confusing me with the observation, because serious implies loud and irate, right? “They are proud to wear their jersey and wouldn’t give it up for anything.” Swanepoel is dead serious when he says he represents Shawnee Mission South High School with each of his throws.

Swanepoel’s well-mannered, dutiful and outwardly unsentimental demeanor comes across as agreeable. Growing up on a 2,000-acre farm in South Africa, he had what he calls a “perfect life.” While their mother and father spent most of their time managing eight pharmacies they owned, Swanepoel and his two older brothers grew up outdoors, hunting and fishing. He says he killed 96 big-game animals on their farm by the time he was 13 years old. At their beech house near Capetown, they fished shark-populated waters, sometimes catching barracudas.
 

“Our maids and workers were like parent figures – they were very strict. You could not talk back to anyone who was older than you. It doesn’t matter the color or gender,” he says, insinuating with this straight talk that he doesn’t think this is the case everywhere in the world.
 

A subject still difficult for Swanepoel to broach is leaving that life behind. The pain of it is noticeable. The move to America was not sudden. For five years, his parents gradually transitioned the family into their new life. Leery of an increasingly corrupt South African government, they traveled to America to take their examinations and obtain licenses in the pharmaceutical field. They pre-empted the unfairness they feared coming, selling the farm and leaving the country for Shawnee. 

Very little flusters Swanepoel – not big-game animals, national team appearances, moves across the ocean or Pakistani cricket clubs – but Byers is chasing him down. The 2009 Class 6A state javelin throw will feature these two again, just as in 2008; however, this spring is certainly not last spring.
 

After Swanepoel bested Byers’ throw of 219’8” by a foot and a half with a distance of 221’2” last May, Byers competed nationally, placing second at both the junior Olympics in Omaha, Neb., and the junior nationals in Columbus, Ohio. At nationals, he qualified for the world championships in Poland, but officials required his passport information that day, and he didn’t have one. Should he qualify again at nationals this summer, he’ll be ready. “My passport should arrive in the mail this week,” Byers said in mid-April.
 

Curiously, though one of the nation’s best, Byers has been tortured by a run of runner-up finishes. “I have replayed that situation in my head – 219, then 221 – all year. I always envision (Swanepoel) at the meet wherever I’m at.” Byers’ sole competition in the state of Kansas has no lack of respect, either. “Matt Byers is a very talented sportsman, one of very few in high school with the skill to be very good in basketball, football and track.
 

“I was not surprised by his throw last year [at state],” says Swanepoel, who also beat Byers by a long shot at the 2008 KU Relays. “Anything can happen in the javelin. He did put me on the spot last year, so I was kind of nervous, but I have always done sports under pressure.”
 

The national marks Byers set last summer were welcome triumphs. Now, after another football season – his senior season – with no postseason, and a second consecutive postseason basketball loss to Southeast to end the season (this time at sub-state), it’s no wonder Byers didn’t waste a day to pick up his javelin. The runway, a place where Byers can control all the variables, offers redemption.
 

“All that definitely factors in a little bit,” says Byers. “We didn’t have the season we wanted.” 
 

A week after winning the Shocker Pre-State Challenge at Cessna Stadium on April 9, Byers was shuffling about on the East High football field during team warm-ups, doing his Ozzie Smith-to-first impression, envisioning Swanepoel as present. “I’ve never tried to talk to him,” Byers says. “We don’t really want to talk to one another when we’re at a meet.”
 

Two days later at 8:00 A.M., things go differently. Byers was stretching out his hamstrings on a guardrail at the intersection of 11th and Mississippi in Lawrence, readying himself for his first reunion with Swanepoel since 2008 state at the 2009 Kansas Relays. The throwing area at KU, wherein Byers had placed a disappointing fifth in 2008, is picturesque, the weather bright and cool. At the foot of Memorial Stadium, Byers heats up with calisthenics, Swanepoel sits by his coach with his hands in his lap and occasionally chats with a teammate or his mother, just off to the side. His father paces back and forth out by the landing area, hands shoved in his jeans’ back pockets.
 

The first group of 10 throwers begin, and it’s clear Byers and Swanepoel will again compete only against one another. No other spearman will surpass 185 feet today.
 

Byers sets the standard with his first throw, a hair under 200 feet. Swanepoel gets close with his third toss but not quite; he shakes his head afterward and looks a bit confused. He’s only been throwing for a week.
 

Byers ups the ante with a 203’5” launch on his fifth try, with one to go. Atop the leader board, he will throw last.
 

Now there are two more throws left in the KU Relays boys javelin throw. Swanepoel throws second to last: 203’8”, three inches past Byers’ earlier throw.
 

And just when it looks like Swanepoel has one-upped him again, Byers channels the hoplite. On an otherwise hushed morning, the crowd oohs and aws, and it’s no longer even close. Byers had been holding something back the entire morning. He throws his spear 213’1”.
 

Contrary to their two previous meetings, Byers and Swanepoel shake hands afterward and exchange pleasantries during the announcement of the official results. There are no loud cheers, it’s quiet as a golf course. Swanepoel’s parents, after shaking their own son’s hand, approach Byers and greet him, as well.
 

This rivalry’s next edition promises to be just as entertaining and respectful.