"I haven't seen anyone with the total package before Chris. He's a very strong all around explosive kid. A lot of people don't know what he can do, but I know he's going to surprise a lot of people."

-Alan Collatz
CSUB track and field coach

Shot putter figures to be champion

By Jaclyn Loveless

Don’t let his mellow demeanor fool you; Christepher Figures is a force to be reckoned with on the field. The CSUB senior broke one of the longest-standing NCAA Division II records with a toss of 64 feet 10 inches in the shot put in February.

  Figures held the mark for the longest throw in the NCAA II this season and shattered the previous best record by nearly a foot. The former record was broken in 1986. This places him seventh on the USA Track & Field rankings for 2005.

  His bragging rights don’t end there. The 23-year-old has also already achieved All-American status, placing in the top eight in five events: shot put, discus, hammer throw, weight throw, and indoor shot put.

  Figures always knew athletics were going to be his life. “My mom told me that I was going to be the one in my family to go to college and play sports,” he said. “I could just get out there and play rough.”

 The Bakersfield native was first introduced to shot-put his junior year at South High School, and never would have expected to be interested in the sport. “I thought they were just throwing some crazy ball out there,” Figures laughed. “Coach Steve Faulk first had me throwing a medicine ball for practice and after about a month I started using the shot put. I improved by 10 feet my first year throwing about 49 feet.”

  Figures then went on to Bakersfield College and broke the school record in shot put and tied the record in the hammer throw in 2002 with current team member Arnaldo Cueto. This may never have occurred had he followed the advice of one counselor. “He told me I was too small to be in track. I went behind his back because I wanted to compete.”

Figures said BC Coach Don Crow taught him the throwing technique he still uses today. “I never thought I would throw 60 feet, but once I broke the record at BC I thought, why not keep going?” he said.

  So what made it easy for Figures to decide CSUB was the next step? “(Head track and field) Coach Alan Collatz didn’t seem like a maniac,” he said. “We spent like a minute on the phone while all the other coaches from back east went on for like an hour. I knew where I wanted to go right from the start.”

  Figures said his biggest competition isn’t on another team, it’s a teammate. “Arnaldo Cueto forces me to get better,” he said. Cueto is currently sixth in the USA Weight Throw rankings. “The two don’t really compete against each other. They compete in different areas,” Collatz said. “Arnaldo and Chris set a standard of accomplishments for the rest of the team. On an athletic level they push each other to reach higher goals.”    

  Now the physical education major is dreaming of Olympic gold. Collatz said Figures competed in the 2004 Olympic trials and placed 10^th. Figures said he plans to be at the next tryouts.

  “I haven’t seen anyone with the total package before Chris,” Collatz said, adding that if CSUB were a Division I school, Figures would be ranked No. 2 in the nation. “He’s a very strong all-around explosive kid. A lot of people don’t know what he can do, but I know he’s going to surprise a lot of people.”