A 4th of July story: Ashton Eaton, the anti-Trump

EUGENE — On this Fourth of July, when we celebrate America and Americans, here’s to a celebration of the U.S. decathlon champion, Ashton Eaton. Not to put too fine a tag on it but: Ashton Eaton is the anti-Donald Trump.

The very last thing Ashton Eaton would have done after winning — again — the decathlon here at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials would have been to proclaim, “I’m going to Rio and my point total is going to be huuuuuge!”

Nor did he say, “I have very big hands.”

As if.

Trump, as this year’s presidential politics has proven, is divisive, bigoted, obnoxious, loud and polarizing.

Eaton’s greatness, the position he has earned on the public stage, has come without him bragging about how great he is. His actions speak volumes. But when he does talk, he does so with intellect, eloquence, humor and, most important, humility.

Moreover, Ashton Eaton isn’t building a wall. He’s building bridges.

Eaton represents the emergence of the multicultural America that Trump, in particular, finds so threatening. Ashton grew up in central Oregon; his father is black, his mother white. As a single mother, Roz Eaton worked several jobs to see after her son, at a law office by day and waitressing at night.

Ashton, 28, and his wife, the Canadian multi-event talent, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, 27, are the model young couple ever mom and dad would like to see their kids grow up to be.

An Eaton story: Ashton and Brianne could drive anything. They drive a white Hyundai Elantra. It gets the job done. There’s no need for more.

The Eatons come by this honestly. It’s not just them. Their coach, Harry Marra, who is one of the most genuine people you might find not just in sports but in any endeavor, drives a 25-year-old white Mazda Miata. “It still looks good, man,” Marra said, laughing.

“It’s a simple statement and I know I have said it a million times,”  Marra said, and referring specifically to Eaton, “Everybody knows he’s a great athlete. But he’s a better human being.”

Another Eaton story: at the Olympics, they stay not in a five-star hotel but in the Olympic Village, he with the Americans, she the Canadians. In London four years ago, he brought her dinner and vice-versa.

Ashton Eaton is the London 2012 decathlon gold medalist. He is the world record-holder in the decathlon, the 10-event discipline that for generations has come to define the world’s best all-around athlete.

In 2012, here at venerable Hayward Field at the 2012 U.S. Trials, Eaton set what was then a decathlon points world record: 9,039.

Last August, at the world championships in Beijing, he upped that to 9,045. He ran the 400 meters in 45 seconds flat.

To give you an idea of how good that is: LaShawn Merritt on Sunday won the open 400 in 43.97.

To further emphasize how good 45-flat that is: Bill Toomey had run the prior fastest decathlon 400: 45.68, in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Bill Toomey!

Eaton, according to the authoritative track and field website Tilastopaja, has the 271st best performance in history in the 400; 147th in the 400-meter hurdles (48.69, in 2014); 191st in the long jump (8.23 meters, or 27 feet, 2012); and 152nd in the 110-meter hurdles (13.35, 2011).

To further amplify Eaton’s excellence in the all-around events, he is the Moscow 2013 world championship gold medalist (8,809 points); the Daegu 2011 world silver medalist; and a three-time world indoor gold medalist in the seven-event heptathlon, 6,470 points in Portland this past March, 6,632 in Sopot, Poland, in 2014 and a world-record 6,645 points in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2012.

It was in Portland that the Eatons, husband and wife, provided one of the sport’s indelible images. After Brianne clinched the pentathlon, Ashton, in his warm-ups amid the long jump competition, bolted onto the track to embrace his wife.

For all that he has accomplished, Eaton’s performance over two days in 2016 at Hayward may have been his best ever.

He was not only hurt. He was hurting.

Coming in, he had a quadriceps problem in his left leg. Then the right hamstring started acting up.

The second-day discuss throw — he fouled on his first attempt, threw just 122 feet on No. 2, which was good for 15th, then moved up to 10th on the third throw with a 135-9.

After that, he went second in the pole vault, fourth in the javelin and wrapped it all up with a fourth-place 4:25.15 in the 1500.

Total: 8750 points.

If 8750 wasn’t a world record, well — none of the decathletes heading to Rio, none of them from anywhere in the world, has a personal best that matches what Eaton did here over the weekend.

Jeremy Taiwo took second with 8425, Zach Ziemek third with 8413.

The nature of track and field — with the potential for injury and collision — is that anything can happen, anytime. That was never more evident than on Monday, when two of the favorites in the women’s 800, Brenda Martinez and Alysia Montaño, collided with about 150 meters to go, at roughly 1:36 in the race, Martinez staggering to seventh in 2:06.63, Montaño limping in to eighth about a minute later after picking herself, 3:06.77. At the finish line, she dropped to her knees in tears.

Kate Grace won, in 1:59.1; Ajee’ Wilson got second, 1:59.51; Chrishuna Williams third, 1:59.59.

https://twitter.com/NBCOlympics/status/750130824977100801

“Anything can happen,” Montaño would say later.

She also said of picking herself up off the track with about 150 meters to go, the others far ahead, “You get up and you’re, like, really far away, and your heart breaks.”

Ashton Eaton has been a model of consistency in a discipline in which consistency is everything.

After so many competitions, he said at Sunday’s post-event news conference, “Mentally, I think what happens when you get older is you have more experience,” adding, “If I’m in a situation in a decathlon, I have confidence I can handle it.”

That was the answer to the first question.

The second had to do with competing while injured.

Then, and this is testament to the kind of person Ashton Eaton is, he said, “I’m not answering any more until these guys get some questions.”

The ladies and gentlemen of the press dutifully asked some questions of Taiwo, who is incredibly thoughtful, and Ziemek, who is super-tough, having done another decathlon at the NCAAs just weeks ago.

“As soon as I crossed the line,” meaning at the final 1500, Taiwo said, “I remembered all those times: this is the hardest journey you’ve ever had. This is a deciding moment in your life, at 26. You know, you’ve had to beg, you’ve had to do this, you’ve wanted to give you, you’ve wanted to not go to practice — just go work at Whole Foods or something, because this hurts.

“Being a decathlete all year round — what are you doing? How are you going to pay for this? Just all that in my mind — I was so grateful.”

When the questioning turned back to Eaton, he was asked about the two charities — Right to Play and World Vision — to which he and his wife donate their time.

“For us, as a young couple to be put in a situation where you get to help someone — that’s pretty powerful stuff.

“The first experience these organizations gave us, what kind of I guess power we have in that area, was pretty emotional. So we feel really strongly about those organizations and organizations in general.”

He paused, choosing his words carefully: “As athletes, you really see a lot of — the Instagram paradigm, where it’s just, ‘Me, me, me, me, me.’ But when you realize [the alternative]: ‘Give, give, give, give’ — it’s very interesting.” Here, he worked hard to control his emotion: “It’s good.”

Eaton was asked, too, the obvious question: what can be done to get the decathlon back to the immensely popular event it once was?

“I think the question to ask is why was it so popular before and what happened to make it fade?

“But — I have noticed things in general tend to follow, like, an up-and-down trend. Perhaps in four years you’ll see decathlon being popular for some unknown reason. And for some unknown reason it started becoming unpopular a while ago.

“I’m not sure what to do to make in order to make it more popular. I think the media tend to have a lot of say in what gets promoted or not. So maybe if you guys — I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything right now but I feel like we train really hard to perform really well. We set ourselves to really high standards. Athletes are always set to super-high standards. What standards are the media setting for themselves? What is it like when you guys compete? Or do you compete at all? It’s an interesting question, a great question.”

The murmur from the assembled press: my friend, have you seen the economic upheaval in our business?

Eaton laughed: “You’re broke, too. So there it is.”

One final Eaton story.

Not content on Sunday with having to answer or forward questions, he decided to play guest moderator, too — another way to direct the spotlight onto the others who, it should be emphasized, had just made the Olympic team, too.

Turning to Taiwo and Ziemek next to him, Eaton asked, “Did you know, like in your mind, did you have the possibility that I could possibly do this? And is there any way you can articulate a possibility becoming a reality?”

Here is the mark of a truly great champion. He brings out the best in those around him.

“To be able to do it,” Ziemek said, “shows how much work I was able to put in and, I mean, doing a decathlon is so great because anything can happen.”

“I think that last statement that Zach made is one that stays in your mind,” Taiwo said. “In a decathlon, anything can happen. After the first day, I felt like, hey, this is going really well. But I still have five more events tomorrow. So I can’t get ahead of myself.

“There are ups and downs. And everybody knows Dan O’Briens’s story for trying to make the 1992 team, in Barcelona. You can be the best athlete in the world, and set the world record later but if you don’t perform at these Trials, the American Trials — these people are the best athletes in the world.”

O’Brien famously failed at the 1992 Trials to clear the bar on all three of his attempts at the pole vault; he didn’t make the team. He would come back to win Olympic decathlon gold at the Atlanta 1996 Games.

“You’ve got to be on it,” Taiwo said. “That now becoming a reality — it just makes every second that you questioned the journey, every second that you questioned if you are too tired or making excuses for yourself, you know it really just blows that all away.

“It makes you say, ‘Hey, I did everything right.’ “

Living in the moment: track's It Couple

The world’s greatest athlete is taking his first outdoor runs of the season in the pole vault. His coach, Harry Marra, is here, of course, at the Westmont College track, in the hills above Santa Barbara, California. His wife, Brianne, herself the reigning indoor and outdoor silver medalist in the women’s versions of the all-around event, is here, too, practicing her javelin throws and running some hard sprints.

Ashton Eaton is the 2012 gold medalist at the London Games in the decathlon. At the U.S. Olympic Trials earlier that year, he set the world record in the event. He is the 2013 Moscow decathlon world champion. He is also the 2012 and 2014 gold medalist in the heptathlon, the indoor version of the multi-discipline event. He holds the heptathlon world record, too, and missed setting it again at the 2014 indoor worlds by one second in the 1000 meters.

On this day, a bungee cord takes the place of the bar at 5 meters, or 16 feet, 4 ¾ inches. Eaton takes his practice runs. He doesn’t go one after the other, in sequence. No. He shares pole vault time, and graciously, with a 54-year-old doctor of holistic health, Victor Berezovskiy, and a 77-year-old clinical psychologist, Tom Woodring.

This scene summarizes perhaps all that is both sweet and unsettling about the state of track and field in our world in 2014.

It’s sweet because the fact that Ashton Eaton would so willingly, humbly take practice runs with these two guys speaks volumes about his character. Obviously, neither is coming anywhere close to 5 meters. It’s no problem. Eaton patiently helps them both with their marks. In turn, they watch his take-off points.

Sweet because Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen Eaton – he’s now 26, she’s 25 – are, by every measure, track and field’s It Couple. They are at the top of their games. Yet here they are, at the track, just like everyone – anyone – else, practicing. And practicing some more. And then some more, still.

Because, obviously, that’s how you get better. How even the best get better.

It’s hard work that gets you to the top and for those who have seen track and field tainted these past 25 or so years by far too many doping-related scandals, here are Ashton and Brianne, examples of the right stuff. Never say never about anyone. But Ashton and Brianne? So wholesome, Harry says, and he has been in the business for, well, a lot of years, and seen it all, and he adds for emphasis that they don’t even take Flintstone vitamins.

Ashton follows his pole-vaulting with a series of 400 hurdle splits, trying to get the timing down – how many steps between each? 13? All the way around? Does he cut the hurdle? Float? What’s right? She does her repeat 150s so hard that, when she’s done, it’s all she can do in the noontime sun to find some shade.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you rise to the top.

And yet – the questions have to be asked:

Is track all the better because it’s a kind of extended family where one of its biggest names can hang on a sunny morning practice with a 54-year-old and a 77-year-old?

Or isn’t that, in its way, kind of ludicrous?

Does LeBron James practice with a 54-year-old doctor of holistic health?

Do Peyton Manning or Tom Brady run 7-on-7 drills with a 77-year-old clinical psychologist at wide receiver?

It’s not that James, Manning and Brady don’t understand their responsibilities as stars. But this is – practice. This is not a fan meet-and-greet.

What if things were different for track and field? What if the decathlon champ was The Man, the way it was when Bruce Jenner and, before him, the likes of Bill Toomey, Rafer Johnson and others were venerated the way Manning, Brady and James are now?

It’s not just Ashton. Brianne is herself a major, major talent.

Of course, track and field does not hold the same place in the imagination that it once did. Dan O’Brien, the 1996 Olympic decathlon winner, is not The Man the way Jenner was. Bryan Clay, the 2008 Olympic decathlon winner – not The Man the way Jenner was.

And that’s no knock on either O’Brien or Clay.

Times simply have changed. Jenner won in Montreal in 1976. That is a long time ago.

Yet in Ashton and Brianne, track has a marquee couple.  Here are breakout stars in the making: doping-free, handsome, articulate, passionate about advancing track and field the same way Michael Phelps has always been for swimming. Phelps is on bus stop advertisements in Shanghai. Why aren’t these two, for instance, featured on the bright lights looking out and over Times Square?

For sure that would be better for the sport.

Would it be better for Ashton and Brianne – and Harry?

It’s all very complex.

Right now, track and field is, for all intents and purposes, Usain Bolt.

Isn’t there room for Ashton and Brianne, too?

The scene at Westmont this weekday morning is all the more striking because it comes amid the news Phelps will be racing again. The media attention enveloping Phelps is, predictably, striking.

Yes, Phelps is the best in the world at what he does.

Then again – so are these two.

Yet here are Ashton and Brianne and Harry – and, for that matter, a Canadian delegation that includes Damian Warner, the 2013 world bronze medalist in the decathlon – going about their business at Westmont, along with the others at the host Santa Barbara Track Club, with no interference, no autograph requests, no attention.

Phelps has always sought to live a normal life. But let’s be real: could Phelps walk around Westmont – or, for that matter, any college campus in the United States – with the same quietude?

After practice, there is a quick session in the Westmont pool. No one swims like Phelps. Then it’s over to the Westmont cafeteria, where lunch is five bucks and the beet salad is, genuinely, awesome.

Brianne says they consistently make a point of reminding themselves that these are the best days of their lives – to live, truly live, in the present and know that they are experiencing special moments.

“To somebody who is in it more for fame or money,” Brianne says, “they would have a lot different outlook on this.”

“The goal is to improve yourself,” Ashton says.

“The goal is excellence,” Harry echoes.

So sweet.

Ashton Eaton: decathlon world record

EUGENE, Ore. -- Bruce Jenner, before he became the guy who hung around with the Kardashians, was once the best athlete in the world. This was 1976. That was a special summer. It was the Bicentennial. Sixteen Tall Ships sailed into New York Harbor. And Bruce Jenner was larger than life. During the Montreal Olympics, Bruce Jenner rocked. He won the gold medal in the decathlon, and ABC's cameras followed his every move. He was the living embodiment of all that was red, white and blue, and he understood then what he understands now. As he said,  "They were looking for stories." America doesn't really know or understand the complexities of the decathlon. Americans just love stories.

Ashton Eaton broke the world record Saturday in the decathlon at Hayward Field. He is 24. He is handsome and well-spoken. He is now heir to the title of best athlete in the world and the London 2012 Olympics beckon, in high-definition glory.

What a story.

"I think the reason the decathlon is so appealing," Eaton said, "when you try it and you do it, is because it's like living an entire lifetime in two days.

"You have the ups, the downs, the good, the bad. The comebacks. It all happens in two days. Everybody loves life. That's why we love the decathlon. It's just like life."

Eaton scored 9,039 points over the two days, breaking the prior record -- set by Czech Roman Seberle at a meet in Gotzis, Austria in 2001 -- by a mere 13 points.

To break it, Eaton had to run the final event here, the 1500, in 4:16.37. His previous best had been 4:18.94. Eaton is an Oregon native and went to college here, at the University of Oregon. The locals were going berserk in the stands. Even so, he was two seconds slow with a lap to go -- but then turned it on to finish in 4:14.48.

Trey Hardee, the 2009 and 2011 decathlon world champion, finished second, with 8,383 points. He is recovering from a surgically repaired right elbow and was, as he candidly acknowledged, cruising through this meet, thrilled to have thrown the javelin without ripping his elbow to bits.

Only he and Eaton qualified for London.

Bryan Clay, the 2008 Olympic champion, who had a solid first day, had a run-in Saturday with the hurdles. That produced a lengthy appeals process; ultimately, his time and scores were counted. But it left him so unfocused in the next event, the discus, which traditionally had been a strength, that he fouled three straight times.

With no score in the discus, he was essentially out. But he did not quit. He stayed in the event until the end, saying later, "There was a lot of hope and exception there and when you see that go out the window it's pretty disappointing. It was important to finish. I know I needed to finish. I didn't want to finish.

"… Between [my coaches] and my wife and my kids and everybody, I had to finish. The last thing I wanted to do is look back on things and have my kids remember the time I didn't finish the decathlon. As much as I didn't want to, there was really no other option."

He also said, "It was a rough day for me. But it was fun to be part of what Ashton had going on."

Hardee said much the same, adding that when historians assess this record they should take the wicked weather -- the nasty, cold rain that has soaked Hayward over the past two days -- into account.

It should come with bonus "parentheses and asterisks and everything" to denote degree of difficulty, Hardee said.

Eaton won seven of the 10 events on the program. That is genuinely impressive, and all the more so in the football weather that he had to do it in.

The world record is the first set at the U.S. Trials since Michael Johnson's 19.66 in the 200, at Atlanta in 1996, according to USA Track & Field. It also marked the fifth time an American set a decathlon world record at the Trials; Jenner had done it the last time, in 1976.

Making Eaton's accomplishment all the more special is that he did it in front of some of the American legends of the sport.

Here, along with Jenner: Milt Campbell, the 1956 Olympic gold medalist. Rafer Johnson, the 1960 gold medalist. Bill Toomey, the 1968 gold medalist. Dan O'Brien, the 1996 gold medalist.

Of course Eaton also broke the American record -- that was 8,891 points, set by O'Brien, at a meet in France in 1992 -- on Saturday. O'Brien couldn't have been more gracious, saying, "I had the record for 20 years and I'm happy for him."

Trey Hardee may have something to say about what happens in London. But all the signs are that it's Ashton Eaton's time.

And he is, genuinely, a great story. He gets it. And seemingly everyone in the sport is pulling for him.

"I really -- I really, truly love this event," Eaton said, trying to explain what the world record means.

"Not because I love running and jumping and all that stuff. Just because what it means and symbolizes for me -- just what the decathlon community, the track and field world is about. And maybe it's not about that much to the rest of the world but to me it's my whole world. To do the best that I possibly could in my world makes me really happy."

World Fit Walk: "... really a great thing"

Rod DeHaven ran the marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Now he's the track coach at South Dakota State. A few days ago, he got in his car, and drove three hours, along the two-lane road that is U.S. Highway 14, toward Pierre, the state capital, just so he could give a talk to 180 kids, ages 6 to 15, at the Pierre Indian Learning Center, an off-reservation boarding school for Native American students, about how he had come from a family of janitors and made something of himself and they could, too.

And they could start by just -- walking. That simple and yet that powerful.

"It was really a great thing," Dr. Veronica Pietz, the director of the school, said. "We've even got our little guys participating. Our teachers are participating. Everyone is participating. It's the first time we've ever done anything like this."

"This" is World Fit Walk -- an initiative pushed hard over the past four years in particular by Gary Hall Sr., the gold medal-winning swimmer from the 1970s, in response to two particular and obvious challenges:

One, speaking generally, American kids are fat.

Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of children aged 6 to 11 in the United States who were obese went from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 20 percent in 2008. Over the same time frame, the percentage of adolescents -- ages 12 to 19 -- categorized as obese jumped from 5 to 18 percent, according to the CDC.

Something has to be done.

Which leads directly to the second issue.

There are, roughly, 8,000 former U.S. Olympic alumni -- or, in the parlance they prefer, Olympians, an Olympic athlete being an Olympian now and forever. Aside from those who figured out how to make a living on Olympic fame, the vast majority are pretty much living life in Hometown USA. Most would love the chance to do something as Olympians.

As Olympians, it's logical to assume they could make for an incredibly powerful interest group. Assuming they could, in the first instance, form a coherent group. Which perhaps assumes further they could find a cause around which to rally.

Bingo.

"The most compelling problem this country faces is childhood obesity," Hall said. "And who better than Olympians to lead a healthier life?"

World Fit Walk is a simple concept. For 40 days, kids in elementary and middle school grades walk; the program also includes teachers, families and friends. Olympians and Paralympians "adopt" a particular school. Everyone tallies their miles. The whole thing is a national competition. It generates school spirit. There are prizes galore.

The program launched in South Florida in 2009 with two schools, Hall said.

In 2010 it began expanding around the country to 17 schools; in 2011, it grew to 42.

This year's program launched last week; it will reach 78 schools and roughly 30,000 kids in 18 states, Hall said. One sponsor, Platinum Performance, a California-based dietary supplement company, is already on board; another is expected shortly, he said.

"What are experts at? We are experts at training like crazy people," said Willie Banks, the celebrated 1980s triple jumper who is president of the U.S. Olympians Assn.

"If you go in and say, 'Everyone can walk and if you can't walk, everyone can push their chair, that's exercise.' Who better to ask you to do that than an Olympian or Paralympian. That's where our sweet spot is."

An added 2012 component: a series of 20 community walks held around the United States, organized and led by Olympians and Paralympians who make up the nation's 20 Olympians Alumni chapters. The first was held last week in Los Angeles; the last will be June 23 in Washington, D.C.; the goal is to reach 5,456 miles, the distance from L.A., the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games city, to London, which played host to the Games in 1908 and 1948 and will of course be the 2012 city.

The kids in World FIt Walk are clearly going to have help make up the fictional miles across the Atlantic to get to 5,456, it's pretty clear.

No problem.

Last year, at South Gate Middle School near Los Angeles, more than 2,600 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders took part -- believed to be the most kids of any school anywhere in the country.

Dominik Meichtry, a Swiss swimmer who is now engaged to the American swimmer Jessica Hardy, is South Gate's "adopted" Olympian. He was there last year and is due back at school next week. Already, World Fit is reaching out to Olympians from other nations, too.

"No matter what nationalities we are -- at the end of the day, we share that same bond," Meichtry said.

Patricia Alvarez, the physical education director at South Gate, said of Meichtry's 2011 appearance, "They couldn't imagine meeting an Olympian. He brought a video in where he raced against [Michael Phelps] and he beat him … the kids were overwhelmed."

She also said, "The fact that an Olympian comes to our school, and motivates our kids, really helps the kids realize that it's about the health thing everyone talks about. It's more than just their PE teacher telling them, 'You have to be healthy.' It's about their life well-being."

Dave Johnson, the U.S. decathlon star from the 1990s who won bronze at the Barcelona Games, gave a talk last week at another Native American school, the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Ore.

He showed some of his old Dave and Dan Reebok commercials -- with 1996 decathlon gold medalist Dan O'Brien -- which, of course, the teachers remembered but not the kids. He talked, too, about how, at those 1992 Games, when he expected to win gold he ended up with a stress fracture in his left foot; he put on a shoe two sizes too big, laced it up tight, sucked it up and went out there and toughed it out for bronze.

"Usually," Johnson said, "you get 100 or 200 kids in a room like that, they're goofy. They were quiet. You could hear a pin drop."

DeHaven, halfway across the country, made the point that it surely doesn't have to be about winning a medal.

The vast majority of Olympic athletes don't. Nine of 10 athletes who march in the opening ceremony don't.

DeHaven, for instance, finished 15 minutes slower in the marathon in Sydney than he had in winning the U.S. Trials.

It doesn't matter.

"For Olympians," DeHaven said, "especially the ones who weren't medalists, which of course many of us aren't, the story I tell for anyone who will have me speak … I fell on my face. The kids in this situation -- they need to see that people who fall on their face, they need to see, look, I was able to get back up."

The kids that day at the Pierre Learning Center didn't much care that Rod DeHaven finished 69th at the 2000 Sydney Olympic marathon. They crowded around him for autographs like he was a hero.

Which he was.

He didn't ask for an appearance fee. He drove three hours there, and three hours back home through the great plains of South Dakota, to tell each and every one of those kids that they could make something of themselves, too.