You might say Adam Connolly was bred to be an Olympian. His father, Harold, won a gold medal in the hammer throw at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. His mother, Pat, competed in three Olympics as a runner and pentathlete. (Pat and Harold met at the 1960 Rome games.) Between them, they have produced seven children -- and all but one have made sports a major part of their lives.
Adam, '99, was in fact an accomplished basketball player as a boy. "That was my first love," he says. "I considered going to play at a smaller Division I school." But at the same time he also began following his father's path in a somewhat obscure, solitary sport. He learned to throw the 16-pound hammer and, in high school, he and his dad would drive several times a year from Maryland to Rhode Island, the only state with high school hammer competition. It was there that the brawny Adam proved his skill, setting a mark as the third-best all-time high schooler in the sport and eventually winning a scholarship to Stanford.
But his real progress came on the Farm. After sitting out his junior year because of a knee injury, Adam blossomed in his final two years of competition, ending in fourth place at the NCAA championships in June, where the men's team finished second. He now has his eye on the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. At a meet in April, he broke his father's best mark -- once a world record -- with a throw of 236 feet 6 inches. Adam is the first to admit that comparing the two records isn't really fair -- improvements in technique mean hammers are thrown farther now than in years past. Still, the moment was significant for both father and son.
Stanford holds special meaning for Harold Connolly, too. It was at a 1962 track and field meet between the United States and the U.S.S.R. at Stanford Stadium that he set a new world record. That triumph came at the height of the Cold War, before a thunderous crowd. He returned to the Stadium in June -- to watch his hammer-thrower son graduate.
