The Wolverine

August 2021

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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AUGUST 2021 THE WOLVERINE 39 "Being ranked 15th in the world doesn't really matter, because they only take you automatically if you got that standard," he noted. "In previous years they've taken 32, too, but this year they wanted fewer, so only 24. "… In the new system, they add on to your par- ticular score in the decathlon. If I scored 8,100, then they'd say, 'Okay, that was a medium im- portant meet,' so they'd add 30 points. Another one in Europe they might add 100 or 150, a subjective idea of which meets are important. That's why people are at the Olympics even though they only scored 8,000 — because they added 200 or 250 [for the meet where the score happened]." It hurts to watch others with scores below his competing, but Owens un- derstands he's just getting started. His U-M experience has been everything he hoped for and more under coaches Jerry Clayton and Jenni Ashcroft, and he continues to progress in all events. A natural sprinter and hurdler, Ow- ens is fractions of seconds away from setting records for those events as a decathlete. The room for improvement comes in some of the field events. De- cathletes partake in the 110-meter hur- dles; 100-, 400- and 1,500-meter races on the track; and then the long jump, high jump, pole vault, discus, javelin and shot put field events. "I'm a sprinter. That's what I am — a sprinter/hurdler," Owens said. "I've got to use my strength to my advantage, but if I get faster, that also helps my long jump, pole vault, high jump and everything. I never stop trying to push those limits in the 100 and 400 because I just love sprinting. "But definitely the pole vault, high jump and the javelin are the ones where I'm lacking a bit and have the most room for improvement." He knows he's in the right place to make that happen. Michigan All-American decathlete Jack Lint placed fourth at the NCAA Champi- onships in 2019 and has stuck around as a training partner. Clayton also coached alum Steve Bastien, who continues to improve and made the U.S. Olympic team as a 27-year-old. "Coach Clayton has coached the decathlon at the highest of levels — coached at the Olympics — and he's coached several 8,000-plus point guys," Owens said. Watching Bastien helps Owens re- alize his own goals are within reach. He also realizes he wasn't the only athlete to get s n u b b e d , a n d he feels for all in his position. " T h e r e a r e p e o p l e f i f t h or sixth in the world and not in the Olympic Games," he said. "Tons of NCAA athletes are slighted in this situation, and it hurts. There are guys worse than us at the Olympics just because they lived in Europe or competed there. We couldn't even travel to the meets, so how am I going to get there? "But there's 2024, of course [Paris], and we have the World Champion- ships in 2022 and 2023. My goal is to actually get a gold … 2024 try and get a medal, and I want to be around for a while. Look at Bastien — he's 27. We're usually not peaking until our late 20s, even 30 years old." For now, though, he's unwinding a bit. He's taking a month off and spend- ing it in Pittsburgh with his friends, golfing and relaxing. He still talks fre- quently with and gets pointers from his local track coach, Oronde Sharif, a "huge influence" and his "main guy" outside of the Michigan coaches. As much as anything, he's excited to experience the university as it should be this fall. "I just want to see a whole bunch of kids walking around campus," he said. "That's the environment I missed. I didn't get much at Michi- gan because I transferred during the COVID year, so that will get me ex- cited to get back to school." As will starting to train again for the event that could help him attain his ambition as 'best athlete in the world,' the title often bestowed upon the planet's best decathlete. Only a sophomore eligibility-wise this year, it's a goal well within his reach. ❏ Owens "I excelled in all sports and was so good at all different things growing up that I couldn't pick just one. I always wanted to say, 'I'm faster than you, can jump farther than you, this and that.'" Rounding Out The Top Five Michigan featured a number of worthy candidates for Male Athlete of the Year. Here are four others who received serious consideration: Mason Parris, wrestling — Parris, the nation's second-ranked heavyweight, went 4-1 at the NCAA Championships in the spring, his only loss coming to Minnesota's Ga- ble Steveson, who is competing in the Olympics as the best heavyweight in America. Parris has lost only three matches in the last two years, in fact, all of them to the Golden Gophers standout. Parris has earned All-America honors in each of the last two seasons while going 40-3 overall with 30 bonus-point victories. Hunter Dickinson, basketball — The Big Ten Freshman of the Year averaged 14.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game to lead the Wolverines in both categories. He was a second-team All-American and first-team all-conference honoree after helping lead U-M to a Big Ten championship and an NCAA Elite Eight berth. Dickinson became just the second U-M freshman to earn a spot on the All-Big Ten first team and the first in 43 years (since Mike McGee, 1978). He was the eighth Wolverine to earn the conference's Rookie of the Year honor and captured Big Ten Freshman of the Week laurels seven times. Paul Juda, gymnastics — Juda earned Big Ten Gymnast of the Year honors and was an All-American in both the all-around and the pommel horse. He also finished second in June in the all-around at the 2021 Senior Pan American Cham- pionships held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His performance there earned the United States another spot at the Tokyo Olympic Games … while he didn't fill it, it did go to another Big Ten gymnast — Ohio State's Alec Yoder. Cam York, ice hockey — On a team filled with stars and high NHL Draft picks, York stood out. He was the Big Ten's Defenseman of the Year, a first-team All-Big Ten selection and a finalist for the league's Player of the Year award after leading all defensemen in scoring at 0.83 points per game, good for eighth in the country. York, the No. 14 overall (first round) selection by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2019 NHL Draft, signed a three-year deal with the team on March 31. He was also a captain on the 2021 gold-medal-winning USA World Junior team. — Chris Balas

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