The RoundHouse | 3/8/2018 8:02:00 AM
By
Paul Suellentrop
The archetype for Wichita State multi-events is a small-town Kansan who changes high school sports with the seasons. The Shocker pipeline polishes his running, jumping and throwing, sometimes well enough to compete at the national level.
Shocker senior
Hunter Veith, from Cheney, fits most of those archetypes. Veith, however, is no underdog merely hoping for some personal records and All-American honors. He may well win the heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships starting Friday in College Station, Texas.
"First won't be over-achievement for this guy," Wichita State coach
Steve Rainbolt said. "We've never felt like that a win was a legitimate hope. We feel like a win is a legitimate hope."
Veith set that bar in early December when he scored 5,998 (6,023 converted) points in his first meet of the indoor season. That total ranks second nationally behind Kentucky's Tim Duckworth (6,071). Duckworth finished second last season in the NCAA heptathlon with 6,165 points.
"That's something different this year and it puts a little bit more pressure on me," Veith said. "My concentration is that I'm just trying to calm myself down and I don't want to get caught up in the expectation. I just want to go in there clear minded and compete hard."
While Veith is the rare Shocker multi to take this level of expectation into an NCAA meet, he is no stranger to that level of competition.
He finished ninth (5,760 points) in last year's NCAA heptathlon. He finished sixth in the NCAA decathlon with 7,866 points last spring at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Veith's performance in the decathlon at Oregon's Hayward Field convinced Rainbolt that a national championship was realistic as a senior.
"I'm standing there in Eugene after he finishes his 1,500 meters and I can remember thinking, "This guy can battle for a national title, both indoors and outdoors,'" Rainbolt said.
Veith joined Jens Lukoschat (2003 decathlon), Chris Dickman (2010 heptathlon) and Austin Bahner (2013 heptathlon/decathlon) as Shockers with All-American finishes. His sixth-place finish in the decathlon is the highest by a Shocker.
Bahner, who competed for Wichita State from 2010-2014, practiced with Veith early in his career and teammates saw the potential for big things, in between trips to the doctor. Veith broke his left leg as a freshman while running hurdles. A year later, he underwent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery on his right elbow.
"Hunter had better talent than I did," Bahner said. "He had a lot of injuries as a young athlete. If he could get healthy, he could be special."
Veith regained his health by the fall of 2016 and a full schedule of training laid the base for his NCAA finishes as a junior and the high expectations for 2017-18. He knows the competition from Duckworth and others is significant. Sam Houston State's Tyler Adams (6,016) is the only other participant to surpass 6,000 this season. Georgia's Karl Saluri (5,866) is fourth entering this meet. He finished third last year with 6,051 points.
"These guys are studs," Veith said. "Each and every event they are good and the best thing I can do is try to compete in each event with each of those guys."
Ten of the past 14 NCAA heptathlon winners passed 6,000 points.
Veith's biggest progress as a senior came in the heptathlon's final event, the 1,000 meters. In December, he ran a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 47.18 seconds. Jumps are his strongest event. He earned all-conference honors in the hurdles and javelin. Most of the heptathlon comes easy compared to the fatigue of the 1,000.
Since December, his workouts focused on the 1,000 with the knowledge that he may need to max out in that event to win the heptathlon.
"It hurts, it hurts a lot more than any other event," he said. "The long jump is 10 seconds and it's over, but in the 1000 meters there is a point in the race when it starts to hurt and mentally I haven't been tough enough to push through it or to trust my training."
On Sunday, Veith dreamed about the first two seconds of the 60 meters at Texas A&M's Gilliam Indoor Stadium, where he competed as a junior in the NCAA meet. While Veith said it's not his first track dream, it is a signal regarding his preparation.
"I've already met my dreams in track and field, so to go above and beyond my dreams is crazy and I don't even know what to think of it," he said. I never expected to get to this level and now that I'm here, I'm excited to compete and see what I can do as an athlete."
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
