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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

BRIGHT FUTURE — Tigard High School graduate Chase Dalton will be looking to resume his promising track and field career after serving a two-year mission.

JAIME VALDEZ / The Times

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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.

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