Frank Perbeck, a living legacy at Baldwin High School

Frank Perbeck, Baldwin High’s Vice Principal is very well known around Baldwin. Not just for being the high schools VP, but for his high school/ college career. He was a very talented javelin thrower.

He started throwing javelin at the age of 16 as a sophomore in highschool. His passion all started out with his physical education teacher asking him if he knew what javelin was. He knew he had a good arm and would have been a pitcher, but his school did not have a baseball team.

“I went out for it, kind of liked it, and stayed with it,” said Vice Principal Frank Perbeck.

After that first practice, he threw for 14 more years competitively. He had a full ride scholarship to throw Javelin in college.

After he graduated, his coach wanted him to go a week long track meet at The Air Force Academy, it was the same thing as the Olympics, but only with US athletes.

“I placed 3rd in Javelin and they took the top 3 placers for each event to take to the Olympics. We had a year off, so I was hopeful. When they had the Olympics in 1980, the US boycotted, so I trained for the ‘84 Olympics, but I was lifting weights one day and injured my neck and I was not able to go.

He has some advice for freshman wanting to try javelin out for the first time.

“Be patient, it’s next to r to pole vault, probably the toughest event to learn. You’re going to have some increments of success, but there’s also going to be some frustration because one day you will throw it and throw it well and think you will have it down, but the next time you’ll go out and feel like you’ve never done it before. Something like javelin just takes repetition and doing it right consistently.”