My "nephew" won the state Track title in shotput today!

My nephew, Grant Smith, won the MD State 1A shotput title today.

His winning throw was 49'1", beating his closest competitor by over 4 feet.

I have to admit Grant is not my real nephew, but I have been best friends with his dad since before Grant was born and he has always called me Uncle Jeff and I've been helping to train him in football, track, baseball and basketball since he was very small so his entire family considers me his "un-official" uncle.

But enough about me, I wanted to brag about him because we are all so proud of him. :grouphug: Grant just turned 16 in December and is a Junior. He is only 3 feet away from the school record and 6 feet from the state 1A record and has two outdoor seasons to get it. He has had numerous college coaches talking to him for both football and track, and he is also terrific at baseball as a pitcher/first baseman/power hitter and basketball as a power forward but had to give those sports up because of the overlap with the track seasons. He won his first major title in the outdoor conference championships last spring as a sophmore, which was his first season in track.

We knew Grant was very co-ordinated when we took the training wheels off of his bicycle on one saturday and he hopped on a mini-bike a week later and rode it like a natural.


From the Frederick-News Post:

"The other Frederick County champions were Brunswick's Grant Smith, who won the 1A shot put with a toss of 49 feet, 1&1/2 inches..."

The Frederick News-Post Online - Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper


We are very anxious to see how well he does in shotput and discus this outdoor season since he has just recently picked up the spin technique, and have our fingers crossed :2Xpray: that he can follow in his predecessor's footsteps and get a scholarship to the U of Md.

And on top of everything he's the humblest, nicest kid you could hope to meet which is the most important thing to us all.