Daniel McKim likes throwing things. Large things, especially—telephone pole-sized logs, heavy hammers, or just 28 lbs. of metal block fixed to a chain. He does it for fun. And for championships.
It all started for McKim in seventh grade, when he took up track and field to follow his older brother. Through a few strategically placed coaches who helped him cultivate a love for the heavy tossing, he continued into college, where he competed in track and field and found accountability with other athletes through his campus FCA Huddle at Northwest Missouri State.
One night, McKim was flipping through TV channels and came across the Scottish Highland Games, an eight-event competition that tests strength and endurance. Think men in kilts, bagpipes, and beards. Large men throwing large items. The multi-event competition intrigued McKim, but it wasn’t until he moved to Kansas City in 2004 that he put his interest into practice at a few small local Highland Games festivals with the same events.
He quickly gained amateur status and became the number one ranked amateur in 2007. When he turned pro that year, God continued to bless his talent as McKim rose through the world ranks. He eventually became a three-time Scottish Highland World Champion, and three-time U.S. National Champion who holds two world records.
McKim’s motivation comes from within, but the training required takes a physical toll. Yet what is perhaps most grueling is the mental approach. Where he used to be riddled with anxiety with big competition, God has tended to him calmly.
“I’ve had so many times where I could have just crumbled and messed up,” McKim admitted, “but God has given me victory. Part of the mental game is to be on and serious, but it’s also realizing there is a great victory in Him regardless.”
God stepped in and realigned McKim’s focus from the mind to the heart most profoundly at the 2015 World Championships in France last summer. After a few early miscues, he sat in eighth place. Though he managed to move his way up to third by the end of the day, McKim quickly got down on himself.
“I had been training for seven months and was thinking, ‘God what are you trying to show me? What is this? Because this isn’t fun,’” he said.
McKim felt God telling Him to find joy in the Lord rather than performance or standings.
“It totally changed my outlook,” said McKim.
He approached his competition differently the next day, finding a renewed peace and looseness in his game, delighting in simply heaving things again.
As McKim competed with this new attitude, he began to battle back into the top of the standings, tied with another competitor going into the last event- throwing a 56 lb. weight one-handed over what looks like a pole vault bar. As rain poured down in a natural cinematically orchestrated scene, McKim’s final throw set a new field record, and he claimed his third world championship, but the real win was retaining joy in the Lord.
That joy takes root in planting seeds, whether it’s through his two books, his website believethrower.com, speaking at area FCA Huddles and banquets, or hosting chapel service before competition on Sundays.
McKim wants young athletes to get back to the original love of sport that first captivated them. If they don’t fit a certain sports mold, that’s ok. It might be God directing them outside the “mainstream” athletic realm.
“I’m 6’5” and 300 lbs.,” he said. “Strength-wise, I measure up to a lot of people around, but that doesn’t mean I have to play football or wrestle. God gave me a different passion.”
God has wired each of us uniquely and, like McKim, charged us to fully embrace the power of our platform, big or small. Even if it’s just to impact one life: our own, as we find genuine joy in Him.
That’s something worth throwing our whole weight into.
Photos courtesy of Daniel McKim