While Brooks Michaels throws a shot around his grandmother’s back yard and looks forward to going to the same college as his brother Bret, we are left to ponder.

Which is truly his given name?

By definition it is Brooks, a solid handle that reminds one of slick third basemen and mountain streams. In reality it is the one handed out by his two older brothers: Tank.

“I’ve had that nickname since first grade,” the Glacier High School senior said. “It was a joke with my brothers, and then once I got to playing football – I was an offensive lineman, a bigger guy – my dad called me Tank in front of the team.”

And that was that.

“Most of my teachers call me Tank,” he says. “It’s kind of my second name.”

It fits, and not because of his outsized frame. Michaels has been relentlessly and steadily pursuing a college athletic career, which will start next year with the Spokane Community College track and field program.

It’s the kind of resolve, Glacier track coach Arron Deck said, the thrower has always shown. As proof he offers the mythical way Michaels ran his neighborhood lemonade stand: In character.

“I was a big entrepreneur,” Michaels said. “I really wanted to get some business, and I had this Halloween costume – a Minotaur. I thought that would get people’s attention.

“I made pretty good money that day.”

“He’s hilarious,” said Deck. “But he’s just the type of athlete or student that once he signs up for your team, you know you’re going to get him 100 percent. He’s just about being all in – whether it’s basketball or football or paint ball.”

Michaels once figured he’d follow his brothers into basketball (Bryan just got back from playing professionally in Australia; Bret played last year in Spokane; their dad, Dewey, was a center for the MSU Bobcats), but first football and then track and field moved to the forefront.

“My first two years I did play basketball,” he said. “But with three sports, it was really too much. I have such a love for basketball… I had to give it up with was really hard for me, but it paid off in the end.”

Spokane CC is recruiting on potential: While Michaels has the fourth-best mark in the discus among the State AA returnees he has yet to place at state. He’s been an excellent practice thrower but hasn’t seen the same marks in competition – yet.

It’s why he was really looking forward to a senior campaign now stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. He wants to see the results that he and his throwing coach at Glacier, former Polson and University of Oregon standout Bree Fuqua, have been working towards.

“She’s phenomenal,” Michaels said of Fuqua, who held the best shot put mark in Ducks history when she graduated in 2005. “She’s coached me since my freshman year, and always stayed late to work with me.

“In college she was stuck at the same mark for like a year and a half. Her telling me that showed that it takes time. You can’t force the throw – it just has to develop and figure itself out.”

Whether he matches the 145-foot discus and 48-foot shot put throws any time soon is out of his hands. He’d love to chase a state title, certainly, but he’d just love to compete.

“If that doesn’t happen, really developing myself and my throws and my confidence is a really big piece for me,” he said. “Some guys throw well in practice and don’t have the same results at meets. That’s something I’ve struggled with a little bit. Finding that confidence in myself and in my throws is key.”

If his time as a competitor for the Wolfpack is done, “Tank” still has a couple years to go with another singular-nicknamed team: The Spokane CC Sasquatch.

You know, like the guy we used to call Bigfoot… well, you get the idea.