When Lydia Frangos is swinging a hammer, it's best to get out of the way.

The 22-year-old Marion native holds the record at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for hammer throwing, a track and field event that involves whipping a four kilogram ball as far as possible.

Coming in second at the recent NCAA Outdoor Championships, Frangos is now contemplating a trip to the Olympics.

Frangos, who graduated with a master's degree in business management in May, never expected to end up a hammer thrower. When she entered college after graduating from Masconomet Regional High School, she had other sports in mind.

"I never did track in high school," said Frangos. "I did lacrosse, skiing and cross-country running, so I went to college as a lacrosse player."

After a knee injury forced her to quit lacrosse, Frangos went looking for another sport. After joining the track team to become a sprinter ("I guess I can run straight pretty fast," Frangos thought.) her coach decided she might be better as a thrower.

"My coach was like, 'well, you're pretty strong, so how about you start throwing things?'" said Frangos.

The sport involves spinning around holding a wire attached to the hammer to build speed and momentum. At the right moment and angle (hopefully), the thrower casts the hammer as far along the "sector" as possible.

Frangos also learned weight throw, a variant of hammer throw that uses a shorter wire and a larger weight that travels a shorter distance.

"I'm not really good at any of the other events besides hammer, but I ended up being okay at it," she said.

She was more than okay. After learning the hammer throw, Frangos went on to compete in Nationals three times for hammer and weight throw, captained the track and field team at RPI for two years, was named an All-American athlete and set the school record in weight throw while placing second in the NCAA Outdoor Championships with a throw of 57.90 meters.

So how does one become a good hammer thrower?

"It's a lot of dedication," said Frangos. "It's really difficult when you start out, most people expect to be good at it right away. You can't give up on it after the first year because nobody's good at it right away."

In the coming months Frangos will decide whether or not to pursue an opportunity to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials.

When asked why she enjoys throwing hammer, Frangos responded immediately, "Because it's so different than what anyone knows. I love track in general because it's a team sport but you still get to compete for yourself. I think I really enjoyed learning the technicality of it ... and I like the challenge of it because you have to be really strong but you also have to learn a really solid technique to get good at it."

"And," she added, "it's just fun, I guess. It's the most fun event on the track team that I've tried."