For Keaton Peery, the boys state 6A javelin champion this year, the road to gold started because of a Twinkie. The Copper Hills track star just completed his junior year by besting all others at the state meet held at BYU in May. He won the javelin with a personal best and school record throw of 183’ 4”, beating his closest opponent by nearly five feet.

But that road began while he was in middle school, and largely due to older brother Ethan’s participation in the “Twinkie Relay.”

“You had to be a thrower to run and get a Twinkie at the end,” Keaton recalled. “So he started to become a javelin thrower about that time. My mom (Shannon) would drag me to every one of his meets and I’d have to sit and watch him throw, and I thought it looked cool. And since that first meet, because I’m highly competitive, I decided I wanted to learn the sport and beat him.”

Keaton had played baseball up through junior high, but changed his focus once at Copper Hills and concentrated on the javelin. “I had played baseball since I was three, so having the feeling of just throwing something as far as you can—that gets my adrenaline pumping and I thought, ‘I can do this.’”

One attraction to the javelin for Keaton was that it’s an individual sport—based solely on how you perform and not dependent on anyone else. He said he wanted a sport where “I could be competitive mostly with myself.” He was mentored by Ethan, some Copper Hills coaches and eventually began going to a few BYU javelin camps. He also received some private coaching. That said, his junior year success and growth caught a lot of people by surprise. He wasn’t on any other school’s radar entering the season.

“I had been competing against Whit Slack (Skyridge) who was favored in most of the meets and winning a lot of them,” Keaton said. “So I was focused on trying to beat him.”

That first win over Slack came at the Davis High meet in late April, but not until after Keaton suffered a grueling and potentially serious injury. He was hit by another javelin during warmups.

“Javelins are thrown on a different field, away from the other track events,” he said. “I’d just thrown my second warm up, was going out to get his javelin, walking on the outside of the sector, and I’m on the right side of the sector, about 120 feet away. As I’m grabbing my javelin, I’m reaching forward, and no one yells anything. Something told me to turn my body and all I remember is seeing a javelin bouncing on the ground–I don’t remember feeling too much, but my friend asked me if I was alright. He told me I had just gotten hit, but I thought it just bounced off me cause it landed sideways. I started walking, my leg feels a little weird, so I slid my hand down my leg and my middle finger went into a hole about half an inch.” 

The tip of the javelin punctured his leg, hitting just below the femur. Had he not turned, it would have shattered his femur. The athlete who threw the javelin never apologized to him. Keaton was treated at the site with “bandaids and some Neosporin” and finished the meet with a deep wound. He won gold and threw a new personal best of 177-7.

He took the next 10 days off without practice, cautious not to tear the wound open. At state he was seeded second behind Slack, and it was on his third throw where he hit 183-4. That throw stood up through six rounds of competition, and Keaton took home the gold.

Now he’s already training for next year, focusing on core work such as lifting weights and doing yoga. His goal is to develop a “higher release–get more elevation on the javelin which will increase my distances.” His desire is to compete in college, preferably BYU where his two older brothers have gone to school. 

That training is just part of what keeps him busy. He’s the student body vice president this coming year at Copper Hills, editor of the student yearbook, serves as chair of the West Jordan City Youth Council and is president of the DECA club at the school.

“Once you win a state championship, particularly when you’re a junior, everyone is coming after me,” he said. “That pushes me harder to win state again. I’ve got to be ready.” λ