By Ken Barhorst
His experience two weeks ago at the NCAA Division 2 National Championships isn’t something Fairlawn graduate Trey Everett will soon forget — for a couple of reasons.
Everett was a member of the men’s indoor track team at the University of Findlay, and he qualified to compete in the seven-event heptathlon at the nationals, held in Birmingham, Ala., March 9, 10 and 11.
He was running the last event in the competition, the 1000 meters, and was in position to place high in the final heptathlon standings at the conclusion of the event.
“It was a banked track, which I had never run on before,” Everett said this week. “Me and this other guy were seeded pretty high for the thousand (meters), so I knew he would be pretty fast. And me and him broke away from the pack.
“About three meters after we passed a guy, I realized I had to back off to keep that pace and score pretty well,” he continued with his story. “When I hit the bank, I went up then came down too early and lost my balance a little.”
He said he stepped on top of the rail on the inside of the track, and that pulled him into the infield for about three steps. He righted himself, got back on the track, and finished well, earning him a fifth place in the final heptathlon standings, which he was happy with, considering this is his first year competing in it.
“I got the trophy for fifth place and everything,” he said. “As we were sitting there, the ninth-place team came up and protested. I thought, ‘what’s going on?’ and I just kinda walked away.”
About an hour later, his coach got called to the protest table.
“We just kept watching the table,” Everett said. “We didn’t end up finding out until about two hours later.”
What he found out was that he had indeed been disqualified for his misstep near the end of the thousand meters. Because of that, he did not receive any points in the 1000, and that knocked his overall finish in the heptathlon from fifth down to 13th.
“Coach said it was a terrible protest, and even all the athletes I was participating with said the same thing, because I didn’t gain any competitive edge,” Everett said. “I still ran my best time, even though I basically stopped. But they told me I’d been DQd.”
“I was pretty upset about it,” he went on. “I was just trying to figure out how something like this could happen. You can’t lose much tougher than that. And fifth would have been amazing for my first year.”
But the story didn’t end there. Far from it.
Everett said after he gave the trophy back, he was just hanging out at the hotel, when he noticed the competitor who originally finished sixth in the final heptathlon standings — and moved up to fifth after Everett’s DQ — was walking toward him.
“I knew what he had because I recognized the box,” Everett said. “And he tossed it at me.”
What Devin Cornelius of the University of Central Missouri had was the fifth place trophy, which he gave to Everett.
“I said what are you doing? This is yours,” Everett said. “He said ‘no, here you go dude, it’s your trophy.’ All the competitors, we’re always encouraging each other, so I’m not surprised he did that. It was a nice thing to do. I tried to give it back because in all honestly, the trophy is a constant reminder of what happened.”
So now it’s sitting in his room in Findlay, and it has a little asterisk taped to it. “One of my teammates put it on there, just to kinda fuel the fire a little bit,” Everett said with a laugh.
Everett, a state high-jump champion his senior year at Fairlawn (2013), said he was recruited for the heptathlon out of high school, but wasn’t interested. Then last year after nationals (he qualified in the high jump), his coach said ‘you know, you can do this (heptathlon).’ Everett agreed, and said he would.
The events in the indoor heptathlon include the 60-meter dash, the 60-meter hurdles, the 1000-meter run, and the high jump, long jump, shot put and pole vault. At the nationals, he was first in the high jump, third in the long jump, and seventh in the shot put and pole vault.
“Pole vault is definitely the toughest, but I’m having more fun with it as I’m going along,” he said.
He is red-shirting for the outdoor season, so he can have a full year of indoor and outdoor next year. But he will be competing “unattached” in outdoor meets this spring.
“I’ll work on the heptathlon and decathlon,” he said. “I want to try to win the national title next year.”
