Sophomore Joey Humes spent his last weekend of spring break amongst hundreds of top-tier athletes vying for an NCAA title, when he represented the Hillsdale men’s track team at the 2018 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships in Pittsburg, Kansas.
“It’s like nothing else — like no other meet,” Humes said. “Everybody’s there to win. You don’t go if you don’t want to win. It was really cool watching other events compete or warmup. When you’re watching national level hurdlers warmup, you think ‘Wow! These guys are good.’ It’s cool to see.”
Humes made his national debut in the mile run, barely missing the qualifying time for the championship race.
“I didn’t do so hot,” Humes said. “I was really disappointed with how it went. I didn’t even make it out of prelims. They take the top three finishers from each heat and the next three fastest times. I ended up seventh in my heat and 10th overall, and they take nine.”
While underwhelmed with his overall performance, Humes said the meet prepared him for future national-caliber events.
“There’s an element of trial and error at national meets,” Humes said. “You have to figure out what it is to compete at a level like that — kind of like taking a professor’s exam. You have to take one just to figure out how they want to do it, what they want, and how it’s supposed to go. It’s kind of the same way for nationals. You have to figure it out.”
As for his outdoor season, Humes is hoping to qualify for NCAAs and take a few of his teammates with him.
“Personally, I want to qualify in the 1,500, so the earlier I can do that the better,” Humes said. “That’s my main goal is to make it back to NCAAs. I want more people to go with me. I wasn’t complaining with being the only guy there that was kind of fun. But when there were big teams like Grand Valley and Adams State, their colors were just everywhere. We have more than one national-caliber runner at our school and I think that we’re capable of sending them to Nationals. I want more people to go.”
