Jack Banks

“We were throwing into a head wind,” Banks recalled. “It was a very fair competition. Everybody there, we’re all on the same playing field, but when I look at their past accomplishments, those guys are way better than me. ”

Maybe so. Eight-time national champ Michael Janusy was there. He’s a friendly nemesis of Banks. This time around, Janusy placed third at 140 feet, 2 inches.

Banks, with his silver medal, earned a spot in the 2024 World Masters Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. That will be a tough nut. The European throwers are serious and strong, Banks noted, especially the Germans and the Finns.

“They’re going to be hard to beat, but I’m going to go to Sweden,” said Banks, who’s never been to Europe. “This depends on staying healthy, but it sounds like fun. My wife will come with me and we’ll make a trip out of it.”

It’s been a circuitous javelin journey for Banks. As a schoolboy at New Britain’s Pulaski High School, he threw well enough to qualify for the state meets. Then he went on to throw at Central Connecticut State.

His freshman year, Banks reached the New England Championships. On his last attempt of the competition, Banks dislocated his elbow. He never threw in college again and figured his track career was over – “I gave it a shot; it was kind of fun. That was kind of it.” overseeing his wife’s knee replacement.

Games every year and won routinely.

And that was fine. Banks was busy running Powerhouse Gym with his business partner Paul Carson. They’ve been at it for 42 years, dating back to their 20s. (They also ran Malibu Fitness in Farmington for 17 years before selling earlier this year.)

While Banks was no longer competing in track, there was an obvious upside to gym ownership. It kept him in darn good shape. So, at around age 50, when Banks came across some info on the Nutmeg Games, Connecticut’s annual Olympicsstyle event, he gave it a whirl.

“There was a 50-year old division,” Banks said. “I hadn’t thrown in 30 years, but I went down to Danbury and I broke the record.”

Broke it by a lot, in fact, by roughly 30 feet.

A champ was born. Banks returned to the Nutmeg

Banks was consistently throwing around 51 meters 167 feet and change and when he looked up results from the national championships, he noticed the top throwers there weren’t too far ahead of him. Then a national champ showed up at the Nutmeg Games and broke Banks’ record. That was that. Banks signed up for nationals, traveling to Wake Forest University to compete for the first time in 2014.

He was sixth that year. By 2018, he’d moved up the pecking order to place third in Spokane, Washington. A year later, in Ames, Iowa, he finished second.

And, yet, as Banks progressed, his throwing shoulder deteriorated, to the point where he didn’t compete from 2020 through 2022. His return was launched by a PRP injection recommended by a doctor who was

PRP: Platelet-Rich Plasma. It’s a regenerative treatment in which a concentration of a patient’s own platelets are used to heal injured tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints. Blood is drawn, spun in a centrifuge to concentrate the nutrients, then injected back into the body. Essentially, you’re treating your body with your body’s own healing resources, rather than an outside substance, such as cortisone. Banks had his PRP injection in February. At first, he was very sore, if not worse. Eventually, though, came improvement.

“By the time I was in the competition, my shoulder hurt, but it was not so bad,” Banks said. “It worked.”

Banks will likely get another PRP injection prior to next summer’s trip to the World Championships in Sweden. Ultimately, he knows, the shoulder will need to be replaced. But, at age 65, the games go on for Banks, and the competition he sees at the national level provides plenty of incentive to keep going.

“The main thing is the guys who are there, they don’t want to stop competing,” Banks remarked. “Every year, you think you’re not going to go back, but you see guys in the upper divisions and it makes you know it’s never too late to start doing something in athletics.

“Sometimes you sit in a chair and say, ‘I’m all done.’ Then you go down there and see a 95-year old running a mile and it really inspires you. ”