If you’re looking for a (legal) way to make a name for yourself in your first year at Bowdoin, look no further than the story of Trevor McDonald. Last April, McDonald tossed a grape, ran 39 ft, and caught it in his mouth–breaking the previous “Self-Tossed Grape Catch” record by two feet.
Naturally, all of this happened right on the floor of Farley Field House.
Now a sophomore, the Londerry, VT native says he’d defend his record “depending on what [the competitor] did.”
McDonald’s drive to earn his own world record started as a kid, pouring through the incredible, weird, and sometimes downright gross annual Guinness volumes.
One day, “my friend and I wanted to see what the record was for throwing grapes to eachother” and “stumbled upon the self-thrown one,” Trevor explains. They were a long way off from a joint record, but McDonald—who ran cross country and track in high school—began perfecting the self-toss.
McDonald may never see his name in the same annual volume he savored as a kid (“it takes a while to process and they pick and choose what they want to put in”) but looks forward to being included in Guinness’ “extensive online archive.”
In the meantime, the likely math major has joined crew—pursuing a different sort of excellence. Although, he admits to have recently noticed: “there’s no record for the fastest Clementine peel”…