Man on a Mission

Tigard’s Chase Dalton, the Junior National decathlon champ, eyes a promising future on and off the track

By Dan Brood

The Times, Aug 14, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

TIGARD — Chase Dalton is all about achieving goals.

He’s also all about keeping his priorities straight.

And, judging by the smile on his face, Dalton is surely enjoying the best of both of those worlds.

Dalton, a 2007 Tigard High School graduate, had an amazing 2008 track and field season competing for Brigham Young University as a freshman and then for the United States team that competed in the Junior World Championships in Poland.

But now he’s more than willing to put track and field off to the side as he prepares to serve a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“This is a lot more important than track,” Dalton said prior to working out with his younger siblings, Everett and Lauryn, at the Tigard High School track. “Track is my second priority. I wouldn’t trade going on the mission for anything.”

With his enthusiasm for his upcoming mission, and with the track and field success he had on the national and international level, Dalton seems to have plenty of reasons to be overjoyed.

“This is all more than I could ask for,” he said with his ever-present smile.

But all of those achievements didn’t come without a lot of hard work — not to mention a crucial decision Dalton made about a year ago.

“I decided not to go on a mission right out of school,” said Dalton, who was a track and field and football standout at Tigard High School. “I decided that I wanted to compete in my first track season at Brigham Young.”

With that decision made, Dalton, 19, didn’t waste any time in setting a goal — and it was quite an eye-opening goal.

“My goal was to get to the world championships,” Dalton said of the event held in July in Bydgoszcz, Poland. “I put it out there. It was on my calendar all year. I told everyone not to plan anything for me from July 8-13.”

On his way to meeting that goal, Dalton recorded achievement after achievement during his freshman season on the BYU track and field team.

He started quick, taking first place in the decathlon event at the BYU Robison Invitational, held in the wind and snow back in April at Provo, Utah.

At the Mountain West Conference outdoors track and field championships, held May 14-17 in Fort Worth, Texas, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Dalton placed second in the decathlon with 6,982 points and he was third in the javelin with a throw of 205 feet, 6 inches. His result in the javelin earned Dalton a berth to the NCAA West Regional Championships held May 30-31 in Northridge, Calif.

“To go to regionals was pretty cool,” Dalton said. “To place second in the conference in the decathlon was also cool.

Dalton was seeded last in the javelin event at the regional meet. However, he thrived in that underdog roll, placing seventh, out of 19 competitors, with a personal-best throw of 218-2. With that mark, Dalton earned an at-large bid to the NCAA National Championships, which were held June 11-14 in Des Moines, Iowa.

“The season kept getting longer and longer,” Dalton said.

Dalton placed 17th at the national championships with a mark of 205-3.

But things were going to get even better.

Dalton looked to earn his world-championships goal when he competed in the decathlon at the U.S. Junior National Championships, held June 22-23 at Columbus, Ohio.

“I was really excited about it,” Dalton said. “But I didn’t think I’d win. My dad had everything scouted out and I just kept my head in the game — it was good enough.”

Was it ever.

Despite having to deal with a disqualification scare in the 400-meter run (Dalton was originally disqualified for running on the lane line, but it turned out that it was his BYU teammate, Jordan Claderwood, who committed the infraction), Dalton emerged victorious.

He won the title in the 17-competitor decathlon even with an “A standard” mark of 7,202. That put him 79 points ahead of the second-place finisher, Weston Leutz from North Dakota State University.

It also meant that Dalton had met his yearlong goal of earning the opportunity to represent the United States at the Junior World Championships.

“That just felt amazing,” Dalton said.

And then things started getting exciting.

“I woke up one day back in Utah, opened my door and there was a big box of USA gear,” Dalton said. “There were sweat suits, a backpack, everything. It was just like Christmas.”

On July 4, Dalton made the 8½-hour plane ride to Poland.

“I think I slept from gate to gate,” he said.

Not bad traveling habits for someone who hadn’t even been out of the country before.

“My goal was to make it to Poland,” Dalton said. “I did it, so there wasn’t any pressure after that. It was my first international competition, and I wanted to have a lot of fun.”

Dalton struck up a quick friendship with members of the national team from Sweden.

“I hung with them a lot,” Dalton said. “We traded a lot of gear.”

Still, while he was having plenty of fun, Dalton had the competitive juices flowing.

“I didn’t know anything about the competition,” he said. “I knew there were some good athletes out there, but, when I got there, I realized that I could place. I was looking to be in the top six or seven.”

A couple of misfortunes kept him from reaching that goal.

In the first day of the two-day, 10-event competition, Dalton, flustered a bit after having some language miscommunications with the judges, had mark a of 40-4 in the shot put.

In the second day of competition, Dalton ran into some problems in the 110-meter high hurdles, which is usually one of his best events in the decathlon.

He actually got off to a good start to the race.

“I was thinking ‘I’m on my way,’” Dalton said. “Then I tripped up and, on hurdle No. 7, I hit way up on the hurdle. Then I had to come to a dead stop before hurdle No. 8.”

Still, despite having to come to a complete stop before the eighth hurdle, Dalton still turned in a time of 16.83 seconds for the race.

“I still had no regrets,” Dalton said. “After the hurdles, I knew I was out of it, but I wanted to keep going and do the best I could.”

With that in mind, Dalton finished strong.

In the discus, he placed second among all competitors with a mark of 157-9.3. He wrapped things up with a decathlon personal best toss of 212-3 in the javelin, once again placing second in the event.

“That was the most fun I ever had,” Dalton said of the javelin portion of the decathlon. “In Europe, they love the javelin. The whole stadium had the clap going for me when I was throwing.”

All told, Dalton finished in 11th place with a score of 7,174. Jan Felix Knobel of Germany won the decathlon championship with a score of 7,896.

“After the javelin, I was just so happy,” he said. “It was unreal. It was just something to experience — here I was, in Poland, competing at the world championships. Even with the those two events (the shot put and the high hurdles), I still had just 28 fewer points than I did at the Junior National Championships.”

And, with the international experience, Dalton seems even more motivated for the future.

“I love wearing the USA jersey,” he said. “I want to do this for real. No more Tigard, no more BYU — I want to be Chase Dalton from the USA — that would be such an honor.”

By that, he means he’s looking at a possible spot on the USA Olympic track and field team in the future.

“I’m looking at 2012, I want to be able to at least try out then,” he said. “Or at 2016. That’s something I think about a lot. I’m excited for my future, but I think it’s going to be a surprise.”

That, of course, has a lot to do with his upcoming two-year mission. He’ll find out later this month what his destination will be, and then he’ll likely leave in October.

“If I could choose, I’d go to Tonga,” Dalton said. “It could likely be Brazil or Mexico. It could be anywhere in the world. I’ve gone from being just a west-coast guy to becoming a world traveler. I’m ready — I’m looking forward to it.”

Dalton gets the same excitement in his voice talking about his upcoming mission as he does talking about the Junior World Championships. In fact, he’s quick to point out that he’s been working all summer for Comcast as he hopes to raise the $10,000 mission fee.

“I want it to be all me,” he said.

While serving on the mission, Dalton, who has seven brothers and sisters, will be allowed to make only two phone calls a year — one on Christmas and one on Mother’s Day.

“Otherwise, it’s just letters,” he said.

And there certainly won’t be time for training as a world-class track and field athlete.

“There’s going to be no time to train. I’ll exercise when I get the chance,” he said.

Dalton plans on redshirting during his first year back at BYU following the mission. He’s not sure what to expect after that.

“Some athletes come back better after a mission, some come back worse. Some come back not interested in competing any more,” Dalton said. “It’s all in the Lord’s hands. I’m OK with however it turns out for me.”

With that, and with a smile on his face, Dalton was off with Everett and Lauryn, running another lap around the track at Tigard High School.