One of the most valuable pieces of advice Jarrion Lawson has received from a coach during his Razorback career came from assistant coach Doug Case.
“Pony up and get it done.”
Deceptively simple, yet decisively effective, to the fans who watched him make history in Eugene, Oregon, last week at the NCAA Outdoor National Championship, Lawson seemed to effortlessly live up to his coach’s advice en route to winning three gold medals in three individual events.
But getting to Eugene and eventually being compared to track and field titans such as Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Mike Conley doesn’t show the full scope of the work and preparation required to reach the levels attained by Lawson Friday evening at Hayward Field.
This is the story of Lawson’s journey into the history books as captured by Razorback photographers in Fayetteville and Eugene, Oregon:
Saturday, June 4
I just finished warming up and I’m getting pads put in my new shoes toward the back of my heel so I don’t get blisters. I also wanted to break them in so I’m not wearing fresh shoes at the national championship. Take it from me, you don’t want to go to a track meet with new shoes – anything can happen. Last year, I lost my shoes and I had to get new ones for the 100-meter dash finals and I got blisters all over my feet after that race.
These are the same shoes I wore in Oregon. I’ll be putting these same shoes back on for Olympic trials. I keep all of my shoes whether they’re significant or not; I have boxes of shoes everywhere so anything I’ve worn that I’ve done well in, I have it. I can show you all of the long jump shoes I’ve worn for all of the national championships I’ve jumped.
I usually write on them, but I can tell by how worn out they are which ones I’ve worn at a specific meet and what year I used them. Usually, I just write what place or mark I got on the shoe because we get new pairs every year. But this year I didn’t wear my new long jump shoes; I kept my shoes from last year.” (Photo/Walt Beazley)
We just put Josh Washington on the relay and we had a raceoff two days before that to see who would make the 4-x-100 for the national championship. He had one of the fastest times, so coach put him on the third leg. Our most difficult leg is second to third – it’s hard for people to take off fast with me coming in, so we were working on the handoff that day trying to get it ironed out. It turned out good, actually.(Photo/Walt Beazley)
I’m explaining to Josh how I’m going to give him the stick and how I wanted him to put his hand back. We don’t really harp on practicing this too much. Of course, we make sure to get it done; we may do it twice before we get to the national championship — once before we leave Fayetteville and then one more time at the track meet. You don’t want to push anything because people start running too hard and anything can happen. Someone can get hurt and you don’t want that to happen. (Photo/Walt Beazley)
I got this hat from the mall here in Fayetteville and it’s a pretty old hat — it’s the first one I’ve ever worn. I used to never wear hats, but then I started to get these different hair-dos and it takes a lot of time to fix it up. So when I look nappy, I just put on a hat and go about my day. (Photo/Walt Beazley)
