Tagging along with her mother to one garage sale after another was not how Anaya Andrews wanted to spend a Saturday … or any other day for that matter. And on top of that, one man running a garage sale had the nerve to ask the 12-year-old if she would be playing sports after arriving at Jepson Middle School in the fall of 2023.
Anaya said she wanted to throw the shot put and discus for the track team for no other reason than to placate the nosy man. All that mentioning those field events to Ron Elm did was prompt him to ask more questions. Anaya was stuck with her mother as Shantea looked at the books that Elm and his wife Sylvie were selling.
“I was ready to go home because I’d already been to like 17 garage sales,” Anaya said. “It was my mom’s garage sale hunting day.”
Elm rarely needs an excuse to share his discus and shot put knowledge. He was a talented thrower in his days at Vacaville High and placed third in the discus at the 1985 state championships. He has coached young throwers since then when he is not running his pest control business or fronting his band Vinyl Ride.
No athlete has ever paid a dime for Elm’s time and expertise. Elm offers both for free because the late Ernie Burton never asked for money when he mentored Elm, who put the lessons to good use. He went from throwing 150 feet in the discus to 183-2, which was his third-place mark at the state championships in Sacramento.
His conversation with Anaya and her mother ended with Elm oferring them his phone number in case Anaya had any interest in learning to throw the discus. A week later, Elm received a text from Anaya that read “I want to throw the shot put, too.” She had no idea of the commitment she was making in one simple text.
Getting together to throw one day a week quickly turned into Elm also taking his protege to the gym five times a week to lift weights. Coaching a 12-year-old proved to be a challenge for Elm because Anaya often had more interest in her cellphone than in working out. When she managed to put it down, her potential was obvious.
A 50-foot heave without spinning as a discus thrower normally does was enough to convince Elm that Anaya was for real. Elm stood in the field at what he believed to be a safe distance to check her form when she launched a throw. Elm has since learned that being in the same zip code as Anaya can be hazardous to his health.
And that was after just two weeks. “Right away she was throwing 50-55 feet with just her arm. And then one of those days she popped like a 60something-footer,” Elm said. “One day I was trying to get her to crank her hips more when she throws. Then I looked up and this thing is going way over my head. I marked it at 73 feet.”
Anaya joked that Elm stands in the field so he will not have to walk as far to fetch her discs. She has no qualms in expecting him to do so because she said she is expending energy and he is just running his mouth. Elm has become accustomed to his second “daughter” (Lyndsey is the real one) testing him at every opportunity.
Speaking of his mouth, Anaya made Elm eat his words after telling her she would never win until she was not afraid to lose. She challenged Elm to throw the discus at the USTAF Masters Outdoor Championships on July 18-21 in Sacramento even though he had not trained and stood no chance of winning the 55-59 age division.
Anaya and her mother were at American River College to cheer for Elm, who placed fourth with a throw of 116-6. Anaya might be throwing that far by the time she is a sophomore at Vacaville High. Elm has good reason to believe she will do that at the very least after all the progress she has made in one year under his tutelage.
That was evident May 3 when Anaya had a throw of 98-6 in a middle school meet at Will C. Wood High. Her mark was the longest in California by nearly 10 feet for a seventh-grade girl. And if Anaya had competed in the Monticello Empire League finals, she would have placed second to Vacaville High senior Ava Ferreira.
Elm may lose his patience at times with Anaya’s antics, but he never doubts her commitment because “she proves it by her actions.” The same goes for Elm’s relationship with his young pupil. His Father’s Day gift from Anaya in June was a T-shirt emblazoned with “THROWS COACH – THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND.”
She also gave Elm one of her favorite rocks. Just like her workouts with Elm, it cost nothing.
