Gazette MVP: Tomas Rimac's size, skill made him center of attention at track meets

Brunswick senior Tomas Rimac was an unmistakable celebrity in shot put and discus circles. Standing 6-foot-6, weighing 300 pounds and sporting long black hair, The Gazette MVP for boys track and field was easily identifiable before his first throw, but it was after his initial toss — in warmups! — when jaws really dropped. The Division I state champion in the discus and runner-up in the shot, the West Virginia football recruit had a presence and talent noticed by everyone who saw him compete. "If you didn't already know him, you'd know who he was as soon as he threw," said Highland's Owen Wendl, the state runner-up to Rimac in the discus. "Everybody would just stop and watch. He'd put them out there, one after another." After fouling on all three of his first-round attempts and not reaching the discus finals at the 2019 state meet, then losing his junior season to the coronavirus pandemic, Rimac was on a mission as a senior. He finished first in every individual competition he participated in except the state shot put, where his throw of 61 feet, 6 inches was second to a 64-6 1/4 effort by Cincinnati Turpin's Gabe Hickman. Rimac then capped his high school career in grand style the next day, throwing 175-11 in the discus to hold off Wendl (171-1), who will continue his track and field career at Akron. "Everyone wants to win," Rimac said. "To not win (the shot) but come in second, I can't be too disappointed with that. It's nothing to be ashamed of. "I knew I was capable of winning (the discus), but I had to go out that day and work on technique and get comfortable in the ring. Hard work pays off. It was a big relief to win, and it was a great way to finish my high school career." Recruited as an offensive lineman by West Virginia, Rimac is already in Morgantown and will spend the entire summer there in preparation for his freshman season of college football. The Mountaineers have a women's track and field program but not one for men. Rimac, who jokes that he met the weight room as a ninth-grader and never left it, estimates he was 6-2, 230 as a Brunswick freshman, 6-3, 240 as a sophomore, 6-5, 280 as a junior and 6-6, 300 by the end of his senior year. "He was a massive kid at the beginning of his track career, but he was skinny," Blue Devils track coach Owen Coughlin said. "He's probably put on 80 pounds since he was a freshman. He benefited from his natural size, but what was most impressive about his footwork was how hard he worked to do the spin in the shot. That didn't come naturally to him at all." As a freshman, Rimac used the glide technique but put in tons of work to learn the spin. It paid off, as he threw a personal-best 63-8 1/4 in the shot and 183-1 in the discus as a senior. Both were the top throws in the state in 2021 heading into the state meet. "Everywhere he went, everybody looked at him and went, 'Wow!'" Coughlin said. "He takes it in stride. With all the attention he's gotten, he's the same kid I met as a freshman, just more mature." Despite his remarkable success and tremendous size, Rimac never got a big head. "He's all business," Brunswick throws coach Dave Dickinson said. "He's not one to wave the arrogant flag around. He stays silent and lets his actions do the talking." Highland's Wendl can vouch for that. Having gone head to head with Rimac at the Brunswick District, Amherst Regional and state meet, the two developed a mutual respect and became friendly but driven competitors. Rimac beat the 6-4, 240-pound Wendl by fairly close margins at all three levels of the postseason. "He and I would duke it out at every meet," Wendl said. "I always tried to push myself to be as good or better than him. He's just a freak of an athlete." Heading into the state discus competition, Rimac, Coughlin and Dickinson all were aware of his three fouls as a sophomore, but no one was worried. "I didn't need to address it," Dickinson said. "He used that as self-motivation. Two years ago he fell down at the state meet. He came back because he had unfinished business, and he took care of that his year." Said Rimac: "Anybody in that situation would think about that. I had a chip on my shoulder. It was a sigh of relief because it was in the back of my mind, but it was a motivator. "Everybody experiences pressure in those events, especially with me going into the weekend with the top throws in both events. I tried to put that aside and control what I could control." After he won the state discus title at Hilliard Darby — his 18 points in the throws accounted for all the Blue Devils' points in an eighth-place team finish — Rimac rushed back to Brunswick to attend prom, where he was a member of the royal court. Graduation was the next afternoon, and that evening Rimac departed for Morgantown. "It never crossed my mind that Tomas would be distracted by that stuff," Coughlin said. "There was no chance of it. He's such a great guy, such a committed guy. He's really good at being focused on the right things at the right time. "I would describe Tomas as stoic. If he's nervous, no one ever sees it. I say 'if' because I really believe he's not affected by nerves like most people are. He became really good at dealing with pressure. It was a storybook ending for him. For the kind of kid he is, it was perfect." The laid-back but focused Rimac wouldn't have had it any other way. "It was very hectic," he said. "I knew all that was happening going into the week, but it was a great feeling. I enjoyed it all." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland on Twitter.