By Elliot Denman // Photo Courtesy of Monmouth University

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – When javelin throwing great and U.S. record-holder Bob Roggy died in a tragic accident just hours after competing in the 1986 U.S. Olympic Sports Festival in Houston, his family and friends back in New Jersey came to unanimous agreement:

"We have to keep Bob's memory alive."

And so, out of tragedy was born the Bob Roggy Track and Field Meet. The first Roggy Memorial Meet was staged at Holmdel High School, where he'd been a standout all-around athlete in the school's first graduating class, 1974. An array of track and field nobility turned out at the Northern Monmouth County town in the summer of 1987 to salute the young man who'd been taken away just two days before his 30th birthday, before he could achieve even greater things in the event he'd dominated on the world stage.

Bob Roggy had thrown the "old" javelin the astounding distance of 314 feet, 4 inches at a meet in Stuttgart, Germany on Aug. 29, 1982.  But when Tom Petranoff improved the American record to 327-2 in 1983 and East Germany's Uwe Hohn whipped the spear out to 343-10 in 1984, the sport's powers-that-be determined that action be taken to curtail these distances in the interests of safety.

In 1986, the IAAF inaugurated its new javelin, with the center of gravity shifted four centimeters forward. Roggy, Petranoff and Hohn had clearly made their point. In the 29 years since the shift, a total of eight spearmen have exceeded the 300-foot mark, headed by three-time Olympic champion Jan Zelezny's 323-1 for the Czech Republic in 1996. But no one's turned the trick since 2006. 

Over the years, the Bob Roggy Memorial Meet evolved into the Holmdel International Meet and then the New Jersey International Meet.  Its site would move from the soon-thereafter-named Bob Roggy Field at Holmdel High to Colts Neck High School and on Saturday for the first time to the Kessler Stadium facility at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. 

The meet was staged by Shore Athletic Club in cooperation with USA Track and Field of New Jersey and Monmouth University, with Manhattan College coach Nick McDonough serving as meet director.

A top quality site for major track and field, Kessler Stadium – which in recent years has hosted the Northeast Conference and Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships – again proved a first-class venue.

And just as its name indicated, an international cast of athletes representing at least 20 nations responded with a series of excellent marks. Some of them would surely have been competitive in the Birmingham, England IAAF Diamond League meet staged just one day later.

Here is a rundown of major New Jersey International Meet highlights, where competitors again ran, jumped and threw in events named for greats of the sport: 

Tops on the track was Monique Morgan, who represents host Shore AC as well as Jamaica, who won the Dawn Bowles-Fitch women's 100-meter hurdles in 12.89, lowering her own meet record in the process.

Winston George of Guyana and the Central Park Track Club/New Balance, who'd been Guyana's flag bearer at Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympic Games, sped off with the Andy Stanfield Memorial 200 meters in 20.62 (just 3/100ths off the meet record he'd set in 2013) and the Larry James Memorial 400 in 46.09.

Ex-Hampton star Breana Norman dashed to an 11.77 win in the Wilma Rudolph Memorial women's 100, sponsored by the Armory Track Foundation.

Another Central Park Track Club/New Balance Olympian, Moussa Demble, who ran at the 2012 London Games for Senegal, took the Harrison Dillard 110 high hurdles in 14.26, outleaning Bucknell's Christian Lupica (14.28) and Monmouth's own 100 Jalen Walker (14.34.)

The Rich Kenah men's 800 went to Villanova's Ben Malone (1:49.88) over Shore AC's Jacob Clark (1:49.97) and fellow Villanovan Josh Lampron (1:50.18.) Ex-Auburn star Fred Sharpe ran off with the Kevin Young men's 400 hurdles title in 51.72.

And featured evening-session action concluded with Georgia Tech grad/NJNY Track Club's Shawn Roberts' 3:44.48 triumph in the Eamonn Coghlan Men's 1500, and NCAA champion Marielle Hall, now of Juventus Elite Club, running to a 4:19.79 win in the women's Chrissy D'Alessandro-Shaheen Memorial women's 1500.

Meanwhile, spirited field event action was raging.   

With men's and women's Mike Pascuzzo High Jump winners vying for the $150 bonus award presented by Pascuzzo, now one of the sport's great coaches and clinicians, titles went to Shore AC Kris Kornegay-Gober (clearing 7-2 1/2) and NYAC's Priscilla Frederick, an internationalist for Antigua (5-11 1/2.)

Another meet record fell to former Big 10 and ECAC champion Monique Riddick, now a Monmouth volunteer assistant coach, with a 54-10 mark in the women's Al Blozis Memorial shot put. Monmouth's own Corey Murphy led the way in the Al Blozis men's shot event. These events again honored the memory of Blozis,

the record-setting shot putter out of Dickinson High School in Jersey City and Georgetown University, who went on to all-NFL stardom with the New York

Giants before his hero's death in World War II combat.

Greater Boston Track Club's Lisa Wilson won top honors in the Augie Zilincar men's hammer throw at  217-0; the men's Zilincar hammer went to Southern Connecticut's Tresley DuPont with a 192-3 toss. 

Penn junior star Sam Mattis of East Brunswick warming up for the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, whirled the platter 197-7 to win the Art Swarts men's discus throw.

Brandon Jones of Belize claimed the men's Norman Tate triple jump title at 50-8 1/4; ex-LIU star Jessie Gaines, now of the Adidas-Garden State Track Club, won the Charlie Mays women's long jump at 19-9 1/4.

But, just as it's been since 1987, many eyes focused on the javelin runway. After Cornell grad Victoria Imbesi won the Barbara Friedrich Parcinski women's event at 153-5, the spearmen took over the venue.

And, once again, the spirit and legacy of Bob Roggy was revived with the staging of "his" event. A top-quality field assembled for the Bob Roggy Memorial men's javelin event and four of them beat the 220-foot mark.

The Roggy title went to Robert Morris University grad Chris Carper with a solid 236-3 effort, that won out over Shore AC's Barry Krammes (234-3), Rutgers' Josh Suttmeier (232-6) and Javelin USA's Tom Masterson (221-2.)

These were top throws good enough to make the national charts - but not quite Roggy-ish. Thirty-three years after that 314-4, it's still up there in a very special and lofty category; just as Bob Roggy is, too.