Eyestone Held Nothing Back At NCAAs

Ed Eyestone’s final two races for BYU were dominant victories at the 1985 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, but nowhere to be seen was the lack of extra motivation.

When Eyestone toed the line for his first final, he had at least two memories going through his mind: one, being for his older brother, whose funeral he had just attended the previous weekend (boating accident); two, when five years earlier, an 18-year-old freshman Eyestone was pulled off the same Memorial Stadium track in Austin because he was “running sideways” in the NCAA 10K final.

Not that Eyestone needed any motivation, though: He was the defending NCAA 10K champion having won the previous year with what is still the third fastest time in meet history and just a few months earlier, entered with a minute-plus PR on the field thanks to a swift 27:41.05 from back in April.

Eyestone took control of the 10K midway and left only the winning margin in doubt.

“I decided to surge for a couple of laps to try to break the field down,” Eyestone said afterward. “After that I had a gut feeling that if I kept on surging I might be able to open it up. When I got the gap up to 30 yards, they might have decided to run for second, which is what I’d hoped.”

Once Eyestone polished off that victory – by 6.42 seconds – he went to work on another title, as the only man to attempt the 5K/10K double that year. He won the 5K almost as decisively (4.86 seconds), defeating steeple champion Peter Koech of Washington State.

Counting his individual title from the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships from the previous fall, Eyestone had now won four NCAA titles during the 1984-85 academic year.

Eyestone’s post-collegiate career initially focused on marathoning – He was an Olympian in 1988 and 1992 – but now is coaching at his alma mater. The Cougar men made headlines in 2019, first in the NCAA 10K – Clayton Young (one of six BYU finalists) joined his coach as the program’s only other NCAA men’s champ in the event – then last fall when Eyestone led them to their first NCAA title in cross country.