It takes passion, heart and desire to compete in a sport year after year, decade after decade.

For William Donnell of Sedgwick, throwing the hammer has been a huge part of his life for more than 50 years.

“The closest thing I get to an orgiastic experience is when I get under that hammer and it goes. God it feels good,” said the 75-year-old Donnell while walking around the sawmill at his home Tuesday.

Donnell will be among more than 1,000 athletes competing at the National Masters Track and Field Championships at the University of Maine this week.

The competition gets underway today at 7:30 a.m. with the 5,000-meter run for women aged 55-84.

Donnell will be competing in the hammer throw Saturday at around 9 a.m.

He has worked in the sawmill on his property for “well over a quarter century,” and he pointed out that throwing hammers helps give him the strength to carry heavy logs and vice-versa.

“Moving the logs helps me, and me throwing the hammer helps me continue moving those logs because those weigh almost a ton,” said Donnell, who works by himself in the mill.

He added that “it’s an important part of my existence, throwing those hammers.”

In the winter, Donnell throws 35-pound weights in his greenhouse, while the hammers he throws in his yard on a daily basis are 8-pounders.

“I’m out there every day, weather permitting,” said Donnell, who is a solidly built 5 feet 10 inches tall.

Donnell hasn’t set any goals for this weekend’s Masters championships, other than to have some fun.

“[Nope], I just want to show up and look like I belong there,” he said. “I just like to go and my friends encourage it.”

Track and field was not his first sport. When Donnell arrived at the University of Maine in 1949, athletic staff wanted him to play baseball, which he starred in for Morse High School in Bath. But he went out for football instead, playing defensive back for the Black Bears for one season.

That winter, he went to the university field house with two of his friends, picked up a hammer, and the rest is history.

“We all decided we weren’t going to play football anymore, and they got me into the track thing,” Donnell said of his friends, one of whom is now his brother-in-law.

Donnell graduated from high school in 1949. He was supposed to graduate in 1948, but he had a “very severe case of dyslexia.”

“I didn’t find out until I was 50,” Donnell said.

During his time at UMaine, Donnell served in the Army, enduring a two-year stint in the Korean War, where he was mainly a sniper.

He graduated from UM in 1961 with a degree in liberal arts.

Serving in the military runs in his family, as one of his two sons, William T. Donnell, was a consultant engineer in the Air Force in Virginia before retiring this past year.

Over the last year or so, Donnell has had to overcome a battle bigger than any throw in the hammer circle.

At the end of 2005, he was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and went through radiation and chemotherapy last year.

After he was diagnosed, he was given three months to live. But he beat the odds – and the cancer – and returned to doing what he loves.

“The fact that I’ve been able to get back in the mill and back playing with the hammers and everything, everybody says that’s been nothing short of amazing,” said Donnell while smoking a corncob pipe.

He has been smoking the pipe for “better than 55 years,” and he added that it doesn’t affect his athletic performance.

He added the cancer gave him a new outlook on life, while his positive attitude kept him going.

“It made me more of a person,” Donnell said. “You can either go down or go up. The attitude is so important, you have to be positive.”

Donnell said that he has back problems, but even that isn’t slowing him down.

“The muscles are holding things together,” he said. “A lot of folks in my age group, what they do is get something like super glue, which holds them together.”

If his back bothers him, he usually treats it with heating packs or ice as opposed to painkillers.

“I don’t take any drugs at all,” Donnell said. “I put a little heat on it if it gets serious, and ice if it gets really serious.”

He added that when he was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, doctors discovered he had “I don’t know how many broken ribs, and my backbone was gone.

“And I was still working in the mill,” Donnell said.

University of Maine assistant track and field coach Rolland Ranson, the meet director for this weekend’s festivities, described Donnell as an incredible man with great desire.

“He’s amazing, he loves throwing the hammer,” said Ranson. “He’s just a great, great guy.”

Ranson added that he sees Donnell once in a while at the Blue Hill Fair.

Five other competitors will be throwing in Donnell’s 75 to 79 age group.

“Of course, I might’ve out-lived everybody in my age group for that matter,” he chuckled.

Donnell was married for “33 to 34 years” before he and his wife Mayra divorced. He has two other children: Jose, who lives in Maine, and a daughter, Ariadne, who lives in Florida.

Donnell has two granddaughters, both his son William’s daughters. They reside in Virginia.

Other Mainers competing in the national event include former UMaine runner and Central High School running coach Mike Viani in the 100 and 200 meters in the 40-44 age group; Alan Comeau of Old Town in the 400 meters (40-44); Patti Craig of Holden, a cross country coach at Bangor High School; Katrina Bishiemer of Bucksport in the 10,000 (40-44); and Brian Hubbell of Bar Harbor (50-54) in the 800 and 1,500 meters.

The event will bring some of the best Masters athletes from around the nation, including 32 current world champions and seven Olympians.

Among the Olympians are former University of Oregon standout high jumper Trish Porter, who holds the world record in the 40 to 44 age group at 5-91/4.

Some of the current world outdoor champions competing are Don Drummond of Texas in the 110 hurdles in the 35-39 age group. He will also compete in the 400 and 400-meter hurdles. Bill Collins of Houston in the 55-59 age group will run the 200 and 400 meters, and Lisa Daley of White Plains, N.Y., will run the 200 and 400 meters for ages 35-39.

Other track standouts include Nolan Shaheed (55-59) of Pasadena, Calif., and Alisa Harvey of Virginia (40-44).

Sal Allah of New Jersey will be a runner to watch in the 800 meters in the 45-49 age group. He holds the world record for his age group at 1 minute, 54.12 seconds.

Former University of Maine sprinter Carl Smith, who posted a 10.58 in the 100-meter dash back in 1991, will be among those looking to best John Simpson of Texas in the 40-44 age group. Simpson, a two-time All-American in his time at Baylor University, clocked a 10.50 earlier this season.