Buena Vista grad Finley big man on KU's campus now
Botched finish or not, NCAAs a success
By Terry Frei
Posted: 06/18/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 06/18/2010 07:29:14 AM MDT

A year ago, Salida resident Mason Finley was both a behemoth and a small-town boy, setting the national high school record of 236 feet, 6 inches in the discus while competing for Buena Vista High.
This spring, the 6-foot-8, 375-pound University of Kansas freshman won the shot put and discus at the Big 12 Conference meet, then at the NCAA championships finished off a remarkable first year of college competition that stamped him as a bona fide candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Finley, 19, finished second to Arizona State's Ryan Whiting in both events in the national meet at the University of Oregon. His official distances were 191 feet, 5 inches in the discus on June 9, and 67-10 1/4 in the shot put last Saturday.
What went virtually unnoticed was that if Finley had matched his collegiate-best discus throw of 197-5, he would have beaten Whiting and won the NCAA title as a freshman. Finley handled that disappointment philosophically, musing that he had three more years to claim a championship in his specialty.