La Conner High hoops coach stands tall at Highland Games

Danny Hagen stays in shape the old-fashioned way.

The 6’-6”, 255-pound La Conner High assistant basketball coach is no stranger to the gym, but his workouts this time of year are done without benefit of the modern sports equipment found in health clubs and fitness centers.

That’s by design.

Hagen opts instead to break a sweat each spring and summer with heavy stones, large poles and hefty hay bales.

In a way, he was born to exercise that way.

Hagen reconnects with his Celtic heritage by competing in the annual Skagit Valley Highland Games and other outdoor tournaments in the Pacific Northwest that promote historic Scottish heavy athletics.

“It’s something I got into after college,” Hagen said upon placing fifth at last Saturday’s Highland Games, which marked his 10th straight appearance at the Mount Vernon event. “It’s a way for me to do track-and-field as an adult.”

Many of the Highland contests resemble the shot put, discus and hammer throw that are familiar to today’s track-and-field fans.

Uniforms are another story. Veteran competitors, like Hagen, are required to wear kilts. His cost $140 and bears a St. Andrews tartan.

Novices, though, can begin wearing regular athletic shorts, thus initially deferring the expense of a kilt.

“You’re not required to have a Scots-Irish background to compete in the Highland Games,” said Hagen. “It’s actually a way to share the culture with everyone, so it ends up being a very diverse group.”

The Mount Vernon format is much like a decathlon, where entrants compete in all the day’s contests – not just one or a select few.

Among his highlights last weekend, Hagen used a pitchfork to toss a 20-pound hay bale over a bar 20 feet off the ground.

“It’s a lot like the high jump,” he said, “but instead of a guy going over the bar, it’s the hay bale.”

Flinging weighty stones is akin to the shot put, said Hagen.

But the popular caber toss is like nothing else. At these Games it requires contestants to flip a 16-foot, 87-pound pole straight ahead so that it lands as if an hour hand on a timepiece pointing to 12 o’clock. Thus, it’s a test of both strength and accuracy.

Those are two skills that carry over from Hagen’s basketball career.

A Meadowdale High grad who attended La Conner as a middle school student and high school underclassman, Hagen played at an elite Amateur Athletic Union level and collegiately for Cal Lutheran near Malibu, where he majored in business administration.

While being recruited by Cal Lutheran, Hagen squared off in an AAU game against twin brothers Robin and Brooke Lopez, who would go on to Stanford University and the NBA. He also pounded the hardwood with future Washington Husky standouts Jon Brockman and Spencer Hawes, each of whom reached the pro ranks.

Hagen continues to play in competitive men’s leagues, one reason why he doesn’t bulk up more for Highlands competition.

He does do weight training and occasionally drives to Acme, home to a Highlands workout camp. There aren’t many of those, noted Hagen, a Shelter Bay resident who works in the Skagit County Assessor’s Office.

“It has to be a large field,” he explained, “where the owner doesn’t mind his or her land getting torn up. When you’re throwing heavy objects around, it can do some damage.”

Hagen has previously entered Highlands trials in Portland and Spokane, but travels less frequently now that he and wife Nicole, already the parents of two boys, Kaysen, four, and Duncan, two, and expecting a baby this fall.

That’s why the nearby Skagit Valley Highland Games are always on Hagen’s calendar.

He encourages others in the La Conner area to join in.

“I would encourage anyone who is interested to do it,” Hagen said. “It’s an incredible sporting event either to participate in or to watch. There are different events all day long.”

In other words, it has a little something for everyone.

“It teaches teamwork in a different sense,” Hagen noted. “It’s an individual sport where you compete against yourself, so you end up rooting for everybody. There’s great camaraderie.”