By Paul Suellentrop
 
The performance chart is everything for Wichita State track coaches in preparation for and during a conference championship meet. It tells them how their athletes match up across the conference and how to set and reset their entrants to pick up points.
 
Senior Yuben Goncalves doesn't want to know any of that. Is he ranked first or seventh in the long jump and triple jump? Who are his toughest opponents? He says he avoids that information.
 
"We all start from the same spot," he said. "Run and don't let anyone beat you. It's me vs. me."
 
Don't interpret his ambivalence toward the rankings as ambivalence toward the team standings. Goncalves is winding down his final college season and is invested in winning the American Athletic Conference Indoor Championships starting Friday in Birmingham, Ala.
 
"It's going to be a little bit emotional for me," he said. "I'm not going to cry, but it's going to be special."
 
While he is done with outdoor track eligibility, he stayed at Wichita State to compete in his final season indoors. His main event is the 400-meter hurdles, not an indoor event, and he hopes to make Portugal's Olympic team this summer.
 
To help the Shockers, he will compete in the triple jump and long jump (and perhaps the 1,600-meter relay) this weekend. In 2022 and 2023, he made his season debut in the jumps in the outdoor AAC championships and scored to help WSU win those titles.
 
He owns five all-conference finishes in his three events by finishing second in the triple jump three times, second in the long jump and third in the 400 hurdles.
 
"He's always competed well when the time comes," assistant coach John Wise said. "He always does whatever the team needs at the conference championship – he's just a great competitor in that way."
 
Goncalves is ranked fourth in the long jump (24 feet, 5-3/4 inches) in the AAC and seventh in the triple jump (49-21/4). He transferred to WSU from Cloud County Community College as a hurdler with a background in the horizontal jumps as a younger athlete.

In practices leading up to the 2021 indoor season, coaches noticed his bounce and agility. WSU needed a jumper for the opening indoor meet with Kansas and Kansas State. He competed in the triple jump for the first time as a collegian and finished third with a distance of 49 feet, 5 ¾ inches in Manhattan in January 2021. That started a career in those jumps based on the ability to excel with limited practice or competition.
 
"He was a talented guy who was explosive," said assistant coach Heidi Benton, who coaches jumps. "He was coordinated enough, with the hurdle event, and had some good body awareness to handle the triple jump really well."
 
In 2022, Goncalves qualified for the NCAA West Preliminaries in the triple jump. With that jump of 51-3 ¾, he finished second in the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championship, part of his 17-point total in the meet to boost the Shockers to the title.
 
Track is largely an individual sport in Europe. Goncalves, who grew up in Cape Verde before moving to Portugal at 7, enjoys the team part of track in the United States. Cloud County won the 2019 NJCAA title and the Shockers won conference outdoor titles in 2022 and 2023.
 
"When I transferred here, I wanted to come as a hurdler," he said. "When I come for practice in the jumps, I want to have fun. I want to be professional and do what coaches tells me to do. It helps me to not focus too much on the hurdles."
 
After his indoor season ends, Goncalves will remain at WSU to train with coaches and run the hurdles unattached in the outdoor season. He wants to meet Portugal's Olympic qualifying standard of 48.7 seconds. His best is 50.5. The standard for the European senior championship is 49.5 seconds.
 
Last summer, he won the Portuguese Championship with a time of 51.19 seconds.
 
"We go step by step," he said. "Track is like this. I can go to a meet and run a mark that I wasn't expecting. I have high hopes. With the coaches here, I think we can do great things."
 
 
Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.