Setliff Went Looking for a Different Spin

If you want to be one of the best, you might as well learn from the best.

That was Adam Setliff’s line of thinking three years ago when he asked 1976 Olympic discus champion Mac Wilkins to coach him.

Setliff, who lives in Valencia, had capped his senior season at the University of Washington by finishing fifth in the discus in the 1993 NCAA championships. He was becoming increasingly frustrated by his inability to master the intricacies of the event the following year.

“I was thinking about quitting,” Setliff said. “But I knew Mac lived in the Seattle area so I gave him a call.”

For the next four months, Wilkins worked with Setliff two or three times a week at Bellevue community college.

During those sessions, Wilkins taught Setliff two basic things.

The first is to keep yourself at a high level of fitness to throw the discus well.

The second is to simplify the throwing motion in order to heave the 4.4-pound implement far.

“Throwing the discus is a lot like hitting a golf ball,” Wilkins said. “Except you need to be stronger to throw the discus. You need to make things simple not only to learn them, but to make them so ingrained that they can stand up to the pressures of competition.

“Everything has to be boiled down to very, very simple things and those things differ from individual to individual.”

Setliff, 27, has apparently learned well for he’ll compete today in the qualifying round of the World Championships in Athens.

The 6-foot-4, 270-pound Setliff isn’t picked to place among the top 10 finishers by Track & Field News magazine, but he expects to contend for a medal in Sunday’s final.

“You assume that [Lars Riedel of Germany] is going to throw well,” Setliff said of the 1996 Olympic and three-time defending world champion. “I figure that I’m one of six or seven guys who can go to this meet and medal.”

Setliff didn’t come close to winning a medal in the Olympics, finishing nine places and 31 feet behind third-place Vasiliy Kaptyukh of Belarus.

But he never had a chance.

“I was so emotionally drained and physically fatigued that I knew I wasn’t going to throw well,” Setliff said. “I put an extraordinary amount of pressure on myself to make the Olympic team and that and being a father for the first time took its toll.

“I wouldn’t trade being a father for anything but it does take a lot of energy.”

Setliff said he feels strong entering the World Championships.

Although his season best of 213-9 is short of his 219-10 career best, he placed second twice and fourth in three European meets last month against many of the world’s best throwers.

“Those meets gave me a lot of confidence,” he said. “I finished second to [Riedel] twice.”

Riedel, who has a best of 234-7, is a heavy favorite, but Setliff said he’s not unbeatable.

“Riedel can be beat, but someone is going to have to throw at a very high level to beat him,” Setliff said. “There is no reason that me or six or seven other guys can’t put a throw out there to beat Lars, but it’s going to take a very good throw.”

Were Setliff to pull off the upset, he would be the first American to win a world or Olympic discus title since Wilkins in 1976.

The link between Setliff and Wilkins is already close.

Not only did Setliff train under Wilkins for four months in 1994, he returned to Washington periodically for two-week training stints leading up to last year’s Olympics.

Furthermore, Setliff plays Wilkins in an upcoming Warner Brothers film called “Without Limits.”

The film, which probably will be released in February or March next year, is about charismatic distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who held every American record from 3,000 through 10,000 meters when he died in a car accident in 1975.

Wilkins and Prefontaine were teammates at the University of Oregon in the early 1970s and Prefontaine is still revered in Eugene, aka Track City, USA.

“I knew of [Prefontaine] because I had roomed with a lot of distance runners in college,” Setliff said. “I didn’t understand why he was so popular with them, but I knew that he was kind of a cult figure to them.

“What they felt for him definitely transcended what I felt for Mac [Wilkins].”

Although Setliff had no acting experience before his part in the film, he’d always thought it would be fun to do.

So when director Robert Towne asked Setliff to try out for Wilkins’ role--at Wilkins’ suggestion--Setliff was thrilled.

“I basically read some lines into a camcorder,” Setliff said. “They apparently liked what they saw and I got the part.”

Setliff’s acting break came shortly after the Olympics and prompted his move from Houston--where he was working toward a degree in English at Rice University--to Valencia with his wife Tricia and daughter Jordan.

“I had dreamed of being able to make a living by doing something creatively,” said Setliff, who spent much of his childhood in Big Horn, Wyo. “And California is a good place to do that. [Los Angeles] is a good town to pursue creative pursuits.”

A world title would be worth $60,000 in prize money to Setliff and make pursuing an acting or writing career a whole lot easier, but the potential for a big payday is not why he throws the discus.

“I love the competition,” he said. “I really do. You get in there with Riedel and [1988 Olympic champion Jurgen Schult] and say, ‘Lets do it.’ That’s what it’s all about.”