BEIJING 2008
Games of the XXIX Olympiad
August 8 to August 24, 2008
Rhuben Jonn Williams is an Olympic Hopeful currently competing as an independent athlete in the shot put.
NEWS:
07/16 – Still fighting injury, Rhuben wins the gold medal at the N.A.C.A.C. Championships with a throw of 18.43!!!!
06/30 – Rhuben places 6th in Ireland at the Cork city Sports meet with a throw of 18.58
06/27 - Rhuben is selected to compete on his first U.S. National team to compete at he the N.A.C.A.C. Championships in San Salvador, El Salvador
06/23 – Rhuben gets 10th place at the U.S. National Track and field championships despite fighting a groin injury with a throw of 18.98/ 62’ 3 ¾”.
05/12 - Rhuben finishes in 2nd place in Hoorn with his second best performance of the season with a throw of 19.69/ 64' 7 1/2"
05/05 - Rhuben places 2nd in Lisse with a throw of 18.63/ 61' 1/2"
05/03 – Upcoming meets: On May 3rd Rhuben leaves the U.S. to head over to the Netherlands for 10 days to participate in two competitions in Lisse and Hoorn.
04/28 – Rhuben Competes at Drake Relays for the first time and get 4th place in the Invitational Shot Put Competition with a throw of 19.49m/ 63’ 11 ½”
04/15 – Rhuben competes in the 49th Annual Mt San Antonio College Relays and get 7th place with a throw of 19.02m/ 62’ 5”.
04/02/07 - New video clips added to training page!!!
03/25/07 – Rhuben throws a LIFETIME BEST of 20.07m/65’ 10 ¾” at Alabama Relays. He surpassed his old personal best (19.75m 64’ 9 ¾”) by over a foot. His throw currently ranks #4 in the WORLD this outdoor season!!!
LINK TO WORLD TOP 20 OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE LIST:
http://www.tilastopaja.org/db/topevent.php?Season=2007&ind=0&sex=1&event=350&top=20&All=0
02/25/07 – Rhuben throws an indoor personal best of 19.34m/63’5½” to get 6th place at the USATF Indoor National Championships and earn his highest ever finish at National meet.
01/27/07 – Rhuben get second place at the Bart Kappenburg Gala in the Netherlands, with a throw of 19.07m/ 62’ 6 ¾”.
LINK TO VIDEO:
http://webpages.charter.net/throwfar32/Throws/19.07.wmv
The following are several news articles about Rhuben:
Overcoming the Odds
By Kyle Melinn May 19, 2000
If ever a compilation of inspiring stories entitled "Overcoming the Odds" was published, somewhere within its pages would be the tale of Eagle Rock High (Los Angeles, Calif.) shot-putter Rhuben Williams.
His tale has nothing to do with injuries or any other physical disabilities. At a muscular and healthy 5-foot-10, 228 pounds, is the perfect size for a shot-putter, discus-thrower and hammer-thrower. Williams struggle began two years ago when his father, Chino "Fats" Williams (remember him from the 70s detective show "Beretta"?), suffered kidney failure.
His father never regained his full strength after he was first diagnosed, but the bond between father and son never weakened. The two had nicknames for each other. They shared good times together. In fact, much of what makes up Rhuben Williams today can be traced to his father and mother, Cherie Williams, he says.
"Of all the qualities I picked up from them, the most notable is that they're both strong people and they never give up," says Williams.
Chino Williams was not going to give up without a fight. That's for sure. In Rhuben’s sophomore year, Chino saw his only son earn the distinction of being the "Strongest Sophomore in America." Rhuben was able to throw a shot farther than any 1Oth grader in the country. The next year, Chino enjoyed Rhuben's excitement in breaking the school record in the shot with a toss of 62 feet, 8 inches.
Rhuben Williams continued to push himself to be better. He squatted a maximum of 500 pounds. The senior bent a couple bench press bars at the school gym from maxing out at 385 pounds, a weight so heavy he needed three spotters to watch him.
Yet, Williams never let his studies suffer. Cherie Williams proudly lists her sons A’s and B's on a special Web site she spun off from her own business Web site. That devotion to grades didn't change when Chino Williams health took a turn for the worse earlier this spring and he was admitted to St Vincent Hospital.
"Two, three, maybe four times a week, he'd leave practice at 6 or 7 at night, go to the hospital, visit his dad and come home at 10 to study," says Rhuben Williams personal coach, Lloyd Higgins. "Near the end, his father couldn't always respond with nothing more than eye blinks, but Rhuben went.
Day after day Rhuben Williams went to school, practiced, visited his father, studied until 11 p.m. and did it all over again the next day.
The end of this routine came a week before the April Arcadia Invitational - one of the years biggest track and. field meets in the Los Angeles area - when Chino "Fats" Williams died with his family at his bedside. Although Rhuben knew his fathers death was eminent, Williams was devastated by the loss of his best friend. Yet, with everything going on, Rhuben knew he had to throw the shot and discus.
"I never thought about not competing," says Williams. If I didn't, I knew my dad would have come back and kicked my ass because that's what he wanted me to do."
The night before the meet had a dream. He envisioned himself throwing the discus, his second-best event, 180 feet, three feet farther than he had ever thrown it before. On the day of the event, Williams tossed the metal plate 184 feet twice, good for third place. The eight-pound shot flew 63 feet from hand that day, better than anyone else at the meet.
The win was for Chino Williams.
"I've coached really good athletes and when you train good athletes with other good athletes, they tend to rise to the top," says Higgins. "But Rhuben Williams has excelled because of Rhuben Williams. He's got that inner drive that only the special ones have."
And maybe it's that inner drive that has put Williams in our compilation, "Overcoming the Odds." It's not because his throw of 63-9 is the best shot put throw in California or that he's on pace to win the Los Angeles Section title in the shot put for the third straight year. Not because he throws the 25-pound weight farther than anyone in the country besides a kid from Rhode Island. Not because he has a 3.5GPA in advanced placement courses and is being courted by the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Oregon and the University of South Carolina.
"We're talking about a pretty phenomenal athlete who has overcome the odds and came out smiling," says Gil Espino, Eagle Rock High track coach.
And that's where this story ends and Rhuben’s legacy begins.
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It's all work and no play for Cal shot putter Williams
Inside Bay Area
AMONG THE MANY faces Rhuben Williams wears, he will put on his favorite today when he competes in the shot put at the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Sacramento State.
Williams, Cal's senior team captain, didn't drive to the state's capital until Tuesday because of a scheduling conflict with his side job as a personal trainer.
Recently graduated with a degree in integrative biology, Williams worked in the library when he first arrived at Cal, and it allowed him to get his homework done. "Then it started turning into a real job," and not a well-paying one, he said.
Since then, he has found more gainful part-time employment as a bouncer, currently working for "The Holy Cow," a dance club in San Francisco.
It's work for which Williams, at 5-foot-93/4, 230 pounds, is well-suited. He acknowledges struggling a bit with how he fits into the different niches in his life.
"I have trouble identifying with my body image," Williams said. "In the throwing world, I'm kind of small. In the normal world, I'm kind of big. I'd like to be bigger."
He was 20 pounds bigger at the end of last summer but gradually has lost weight. "To be perfectly honest, I'm just not eating enough. Food is expensive," Williams said.
Still, Williams has enough power and technique to heave a 16-pound iron ball well more than 60 feet. An 11th-place finisher at the NCAAs last year, he enters today's shot put prelims seeded No.8, with a season-best throw of 64 feet, 21/2 inches. His lifetime best is 64-93/4.
"My goal is to have my biggest throw of the year this weekend," he said, alluding to Friday's final.
A former two-time high school state champ from Los Angeles, Williams also would like to climb one more rung on Cal's career chart. He currently sits No.2, behind Dave Porath, who threw 66-3 way back in 1981.
Williams already has qualified for the U.S. nationals June 23-36 in Carson and would like to continue his career beyond college. For now, he's focused on the NCAAs, and he knows he will be amped for his final collegiate competition.
"Probably 80 percent of the time my first throw, I'm still nervous," he said. "At the Pac-10 meet, it was like my heart was going to thump through my chest.
"It's pretty hard for me to control my emotions. I'm a pretty animated guy. I want to be good so much, it can get away from me."
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