Mississippi State
NCAA Outdoor Championships (O)
Bulldog Foursome Driven To Succeed At Nationals
June 07, 2022 | Track & Field, Joel Coleman
Steely, Jónsson, Crump and Anderson have all gone to Eugene with a purpose.
STARKVILLE – When individual national championships are on the line, it's not as though an athlete really needs much more motivation than the opportunity to be crowned as the best in the country. Nevertheless, the four Mississippi State Bulldogs in Eugene, Oregon, this week for the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field all have a little extra incentive to succeed anyway.
Sydney Steely, DJ Jónsson, Cameron Crump and Navasky Anderson will all compete for titles in the coming days. Jónsson and Crump will each strive for crowns on Wednesday as Jónsson's final in the men's javelin takes place at 7:45 p.m. CT, while Crump's men's long jump final happens at 8 p.m. CT.
Anderson and Steely will each have to advance through semifinal rounds in their respective 800m events first, with Anderson's men's event scheduled for Wednesday at 8:14 p.m. CT and Steely's women's race set for 9:14 p.m. CT on Thursday. Should they advance, Anderson's final would come at 9:14 p.m. CT on Friday, while Steely's would happen at 5:44 p.m. CT on Saturday.
And again, aside from the championship chases alone, all four Bulldogs have their own individual chips on the shoulder to help push them towards their respective mountaintops. Here's a quick look at what's driving each Bulldog as they get ready to perform in Eugene:
STEELY CAPS A SPECIAL CAREER
It's been a special Bulldog career for Steely since she arrived in Starkville in 2018. Yet over the course of her time in maroon and white, a trip to the NCAA Championships has always eluded her. Well, not now.
Steely punched her ticket to nationals in late May and it's evident how much it means to the Hoover, Alabama, native.
"It's really awesome," Steely said. "It's a great way to kind of cap off my career here at Mississippi State. This is a goal I've been working for all four years. I got kind of close last year in the outdoor season and I was just a couple of people out from the national meet indoors this year. I knew I was doing everything I needed to in order to be in the spot to make it to nationals. I'm just glad everything kind of came together and worked out how I'd hoped."
Perhaps a March visit home provided Steely just the spark she needed to get over the top and get to this point.
This spring, the NCAA Indoor Championships were held in Birmingham, near Steely's old stomping grounds in Hoover. Steely didn't get to compete, but she went. She observed. And she admits, she walked away with a little extra fire inside of herself.
"I sat and watched the entire meet," Steely said. "It was really, really awesome to see my competitors and watch records being broken and whatnot. But it definitely kind of triggered something in me there. I remember going home that night and telling my mom, 'I'll be on the other side of this come outdoors.'"
And now here she is. Steely qualified for Eugene with a second-place time of 2:04.46 in the NCAA East Prelims last month in Bloomington, Indiana.
As exciting as it all is, she's not satisfied just getting to nationals. Steely wants to make plenty of noise while up in the Pacific Northwest.
"I'm stoked," Steely said. "So, I'm going with the goal to win or be as close to the front as I can. I think [head coach Chris Woods] has done a good job of setting us up to peak at this meet. That's my goal. Just go in and beat as many people as I can."
JÓNSSON DEFENDS JAV U REPUTATION
An argument can be made Jónsson heads into the NCAA Championships with as much fuel to win as anyone. Why? Well, consider all the reasons.
One, there's the goal of the individual title itself of course. But then, there's the Mississippi State reputation in the javelin to uphold.
MSU's success in the event over the years, dating back to former Bulldog Curtis Thompson's individual national championship in 2016, has earned State the distinction of being labeled as Jav U. That means a lot to Jónsson.
"We've built a reputation throughout the years and we have a little bit of a target on our back and everybody's trying to come out and say they're Jav U now and stuff like that," Jónsson said. "So, definitely it's kind of a big responsibility that Jav U has."
Of course, Jónsson himself is a big reason for why the Bulldogs are so revered in the javelin in the first place. He's won the Southeastern Conference individual championship in back-to-back seasons. The Icelander was last year's SEC Outdoor Freshman Field Athlete of the Year.
And also last year, in his debut season with MSU, Jónsson was right on the cusp of winning the individual national crown. Unfortunately, he came up just short.
"I finished second," Jónsson recalled. "I lost on the last throw."
Therein lies perhaps the biggest piece of Jónsson's motivation this week.
"I'm definitely there for revenge," Jónsson said. "It's championship or bust for me. That's how the mentality has been this whole year. Like I said, I lost the national championship on the last throw last year and I don't intend to let that happen again."
It might sound like, with all these factors, there's pressure on Jónsson. And to a certain degree – as with any athlete on a big stage – there is. However, he's not really looking at it that way.
Jónsson goes into this week confident. He's excited. And he's got a pretty basic gameplan to try and reach his title-winning goal.
"I'm just going to go out and compete my heart out and just have fun," Jónsson said.
CRUMP HAS FINALS IN HIS SIGHT
There's a picture on Crump's phone, he says. Photographed is the board showing results from last year in Eugene.
You see, this will be the second-straight year Crump has competed at nationals. He wanted to make sure a moment from last year stuck with him.
In 2021, Crump finished 13th in the long jump. He also was part of State's 4x400m relay team that missed out on the finals. It was disappointing, but it all provided Crump's photo op.
"I just wanted that on my phone to remind myself how I've got to keep going and keep working," Crump said.
And so he has. Earlier this year, Crump earned First Team All-American honors at the 2022 NCAA Indoor Championships. Then, last month at the outdoor prelims, Crump finished first and enters Oregon as the leading entry out of the East Region with his personal-best jump of 7.97 meters.
It's safe to say Crump has taken himself to a new level.
"I feel like I've improved a lot," Crump said of his growth since last year's nationals. "That's the goal to improve every year and I think this year I was more mature with my training and my mindset. Mentally, I've been calmer and ready to get back out and compete. Especially coming off of injury at the beginning of this year and having to have that mindset of getting back to where I was before I was injured. That drive to get to this point is what drove me every day."
Ah yes, the injury. In a way, Crump views his pain from earlier this year as a blessing in disguise. He was dealing with a severe case of plantar fasciitis. Crump had a procedure on it and was in a boot for six weeks.
The bad news? It took away six weeks of training and development. The good news? Here Crump is headed into nationals with a full tank of energy.
"I'm just really getting back," Crump said. "Everyone else has been going through a long season and I'm just starting. So, I'm fresh. I feel good. While others' bodies might be starting to break down, I'm just starting to get hyped up."
Crump is pumped, and if for any reason he loses that enthusiasm before it's time to compete, well all he has to do is pull out his phone and look at one old pic to get reenergized.
ANDERSON KEEPS ON GOING
He's not the Energizer bunny. However, Anderson shares a trait with the iconic mascot when it comes to his mentality.
Yes, Anderson is about to compete for a national championship, and yes, he just won an individual SEC title in the men's 800m last month. But Anderson is far, far from satisfied.
"I'm never even partially satisfied," Anderson said. "I have bigger goals – short-term goals and medium-term goals that I'm working to achieve. There's the national championship. A few weeks after this, I'll be headed home towards Jamaica to my national trials."
Then there's the part that reveals Anderson has some similarity with the drum-banging, battery maker's rabbit.
"I'm just going to keep going and keep going and keep going," Anderson said.
There's a confidence to Anderson headed into nationals. And why wouldn't there be? Aside from his recently-won SEC crown, he also earned a First Team All-SEC accolade.
Oh, and his personal best time of 1:45.89 that won him the conference championship? It was the fifth-fastest time ever by a Jamaican man in a men's 800m event and the fastest time by a Jamaican male since May of 1996.
"It means a lot to me," Anderson said of making waves in his home country. "Because in 1996, I wasn't born yet. I was born in the year 2000. So, to know that my country hasn't seen anyone run that fast since 1996, it means a lot to me and a lot of people are looking up to me now and reaching out to me and I just want to inspire the younger generation of athletes and let them know that they can be dominant in the 800m, just as [fellow Jamaican] Usain Bolt is dominant in the 100m."
Anderson gets another chance to tap into his confidence, inspire others and show just how good he can be this week at nationals. And like fellow Bulldogs Steely, Jónsson and Crump, Anderson can look into his past to draw some extra motivation for his present as well.
Anderson finished 15th in last season's prelims and didn't get the chance to run at nationals. It stuck with him. Yet it certainly didn't stop him.
He's just kept going and going and going. It's indeed the only way he knows and he's planning to make the most of that approach in Eugene.
"That feeling I had from last year of not making it, I tripled that feeling and came back this year and just told myself, 'Listen, I just have to make it,'" Anderson said. "I have to be here. This is what I was made for and what I've been training for.'"
Players Mentioned
