Kamiak’s Beard is best high school hammer thrower in state

MUKILTEO — Tim Beard is the best high school hammer thrower in the state.

The senior from Kamiak is the reigning state champion in the event. In his first outing this season, on March 20 in Centralia, he uncorked a throw of 202 feet, more than 20 feet farther than his state-winning heave a year ago. He’s entertaining scholarship offers from colleges such as Oregon and Azusa Pacific.

Yet when the Junior Olympics roll around each summer — providing a rare opportunity for exposure for an athlete who competes in something that’s not an official high school track and field event in the state of Washington — Beard is nowhere to be found. Instead, he spends that time in a different country helping those who are less fortunate.

Instead of further honing his hammer-throwing skills, Beard spent the past seven summers helping build houses for needy people in Mexico. His is a tale of an elite athlete whose sport is secondary.

“Track is just a sport,” Beard said. “I can affect way more people, help out a lot more by building a house.”

Beard’s sport of choice is not a common one for high school athletes. The hammer throw is not contested at high school meets, largely because of the damage the hammer does to fields when it lands.

But Beard, who also competes in the discus and shot put for Kamiak, was introduced to the hammer throw in eighth grade by his dad, Chris, who threw the hammer in college. It took time for Beard to perfect an event that is as much about technique as it is brute strength. But he’s now progressed to the point where he’s among the best in the nation. According to the High School Hammer website, Beard’s throw of 202-0 was the fourth-best in the nation as of March 31.

“He’s put the time into it,” said Chris Beard, who’s assisted with coaching his son. “He’s someone who when he really likes something, he’s dedicated to it, and he likes the hammer.”

But it turns out there’s something Beard likes more.

For the past seven years he’s traveled to a rural area outside the Mexican town of Tecate with ClubRust, a Christian organization that builds houses for those in need. Every year ClubRust’s trip takes place over the last weekend of June and the first week of July — which happens to be the same time as the Pacific Northwest region’s Junior Olympics.

However, Beard’s history with ClubRust predates his time throwing the hammer. His parents first took Beard and his brother, Mitchell, to Mexico with ClubRust when Beard was 11 years old.

“Kids have so much around here,” Chris Beard said of the decision. “They have phones and junk and their dressers are overflowing. We had two boys and we wanted them to know about other cultures and have something where the focus was on something other than themselves, where they’d do something for someone else.”

Their first thought was to join Habitat For Humanity, but Beard and his younger brother were too young to join. ClubRust doesn’t have the same age restrictions, and when the Beard family was invited to join by some church friends, they accepted.

“We went down, we liked it, went back down again,” Beard said. “My parents came three times, and ever since then I’ve been going by myself. I’ve liked it, the people who run it are great, and I’ve just gotten more and more involved.”

The living conditions in the area ClubRust serves are dire.

“For the people we build for, there’s no running water,” Beard said. “The electricity I think is stolen, it’s not legally supposed to be there but they’ve hooked up into the city’s electrical. They burn their garbage, their restroom is just a hole in the ground or the side of the road. The only way to get there is up this kind of a road, but it’s ridiculous. We take buses up there but it’s like shaking around in a box. They live in (structures made out) of whatever wood they can get, so a lot of it is (discarded) garage doors from California, or it’s just tar paper.”

ClubRust gives these people real houses. The volunteers put down concrete slabs as foundations, then build two structures: a two-bedroom house and an outhouse. ClubRust, which takes anywhere from 80 to 120 people each year, builds between three and five houses over the course of three days.

Beard has progressed to the point where he arrives early with the advance team to help set up ClubRust’s camp, and he’s also become one of the team’s lead outhouse builders, where he supervises a group of two or three in the construction of one of the outhouses.

“It’s kind of funny,” Beard said about attaining the title of lead outhouse builder. “But you sort of have a competition with the actual house. Sometimes the outhouse will take as long as the real house because you have to cut all the materials yourself, and a lot of times you have to improvise. For the real house, everything’s cut and you just have to put it together. … It’s kind of fun to not be the master builder of the house, but be able to lead another project.”

What brings Beard back every year?

“Just the sense of giving your time, giving a house to a family that’s pretty much living in whatever they can find, living on this hill that even good vehicles can barely get up, seeing the people’s reaction, it’s a great feeling,” Beard said. “I just feel like I’ve been called to do it.”

It’s possible Beard will be able to engineer a way of both going to Mexico and competing in the Junior Olympics regional meet this summer. But if it doesn’t work out, there’s no question which he’s choosing.

“He’s developing into a very good thrower and into a very good person — which is the part I like,” Chris Beard said. “Sports is a means to an end as opposed to the end itself.

“He sees that and doesn’t let it define who he is.”