Reporter
Karnell Grimes is a senior on the track and field team at CSU Bakersfield.
However, track and field wasn’t the sport he came to CSUB to play.
Grimes did not start participating in track and field until after comin to CSUB. Last year, he came in third place in the Western Athletic Conference for javelin. Grimes played baseball for the ’Runners when he first came to CSUB.
Grimes was a pitcher and an outfielder. A friend then suggested that he try out for the CSUB track and field team. They thought that specifically the javelin throw would be a natural fit for him as he had a strong arm being an outfielder and pitcher.
Photo by Avry Photography.
Grimes said the coach’s thinking of the idea of him playing for the track and field team was, “let’s see if this kid is possibly someone who could be good at javelin.” Sure enough he had the goods. Last season as a redshirt junior, he earned Western Athletic Conference All-Conference honors.
This year in his senior season he has improved on his career best from last season. On April 4 at the PomonaPitzer Invitational, Grimes improved on CSUB’s 2014 best mark for the javelin throw, 19910. That was the second straight week he broke his career best, and the third time this season.
Grimes is now 7th on CSUB’s all-time Top 20 list in the event, and second in the WAC for this season.Grimes said that time wise the practice time for track and field was much easier than for baseball. Grimes said that once he got involved with javelin and hammer throw he fell in love with the sport. He started out running on the relay team, but now in his senior year he concentrates only on the javelin and the hammer.
Grimes’ father is a baseball coach in his hometown, Rosamond, Calif. Since he hadn’t been raised with the javelin and the hammer, the only person he’s had for guidance on the sport has been track and field coach, Alan Collatz.
Collatz was a javelin and hammer Olympic qualifier for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
“He’s a phenomenal javelin thrower,” Grimes said. “He’s my coach, so I am learning from him”. CSUB track and field coach emeritus, Alan Collatz, a CSUB alumnus still holds the school’s all-time record for the javelin throw with his 267-1 mark he set back in 1985.
When Grimes made the switch from baseball to track and field, Collatz knew that Grimes’s natural athleticism would help his transition. Collatz added that all athletes go through highs and lows, but it’s been Grimes’s persistence to get better after the lows that has helped him achieve so much success.
“He was going to work until he became good. He’s been able to overcome the bad times. There’s not a lot of athletes that are willing to work extremely hard”, Collatz said.”Very few work as hard as he does.”
Grimes comes from a family of 15 in Rosamond. His parents had 13 kids together, and he is the third eldest of the thirteen. He said that taking care of all his siblings taught him responsibility and time management. He credits the responsibility of taking care of all his younger sibling as wells as his Christian faith for giving him the character he has today.
“Growing up in a Christian home has taught me a lot of good character traits,” Grimes said. “Growing up in a Christian home, the morals and stuff made me the man I am. I have to grow up because I have to do my homework and then baby sit my siblings and then play sports”.
In addition to Grimes’s WAC All-Conference honors last season, he was also named to the WAC AllAcademic Team.
“Not only has he had success in track and field and been one of the leaders on the team, but he’s a good person as well,” Collatz said. “That’s going to translate into life.”
