By Chris Macaluso
LSUsports.net
Junior decathlete Claston Bernard has many accomplishments to be proud of in his first three years at LSU.
The native of Jamaica won the Southeastern Conference Decathlon title May 11th with a superb score of 8,024, the second-highest winning total in SEC history. Not only was Bernard’s score the best in the NCAA this season, but it was also the best in the world so far this year.
The win was Bernard’s third-consecutive SEC title, a feat no other athlete has ever accomplished. The score put him in some elite company in LSU track and field history as just the third Tiger athlete to break the 8,000-point barrier. The other two, Mikael Olander and Mario Sategna both won NCAA Championships.
Now, Bernard has his sights set on a championship of his own while helping the Tigers to their second NCAA Championship this year. Bernard will get that chance when the Tigers and Lady Tiger compete in the NCAA Outdoor Championships May 30-June 2 in Eugene, Ore.
But, according to him, the titles aren’t the only thing he’s running for.
“I call my sisters and my family back in Jamaica. Even though I have broken 8,000, back home they haven’t really heard about it,’ Bernard said. “The decathlon is a non-traditional sprint sport and back home they really stress the sprints.”
Bernard said he is still looking for respect and trying to make the people of Jamaica proud. But he’s also looking for ward to the opportunity to help his teammates hoist another National Championship trophy over their heads.
He represented his home country in last year’s Olympic Games in Sydney but said he was disappointed with the outcome.
Bernard said he now looks at every meet as an opportunity to show the Jamaican people and the rest of the track and field world how good an athlete he really is.
“Anybody who saw me compete in the Olympics last year may think that I’m not very good because I didn’t have a good meet,” he said. “Now I think it’s time for them to look at me a and my event and see that I am a pretty good athlete.”
“Pretty good” doesn’t begin to describe the amount of talent LSU Coach Pat Henry believes Bernard posseses. At 6-4, 220 pounds, Bernard is one of the most physically impressive athletes on the LSU team. Henry said Bernard still has room to grow both physically and mentally.
“Just getting a little older each year is going to help Claston change what he does for the better,’ Henry said. ‘A lot of hard work has gone into doing what he does now.”
Part of that hard work on Bernard’s part came with help from Tiger assistant coach ‘Boo’ Schexnayder who broke down each individual decathlon event with Bernard to identify the areas he needed to improve most.
“Since I’ve been here I’ve improved dramatically,” Bernard said. “(Field event )Coach Boo (Schexnadyer) molded me into the decathlete I am now. He stressed technique after technique instead of me just going out there and thinking I can force my way in. There’s a lot of room for improvement but Coach Boo has gotten the things that were really bad at least 60 percent better.”
Schexnayder said Bernard’s physical and mental growth as an athlete was helped greatly by competing against the best athletes in the world at the Olympic Games.
“A great part of his motivation comes from the pride he has for his country,’ Schexnayder said. ‘He’s seen track on the elite level and he knows what it takes to compete against the best in the world.”
While Bernard admits that he is always representing his country first, he leaves little doubt that his main goal in the upcoming NCAA Championships is helping his teammates bring back another NCAA Championship trophy to Baton Rouge.
“I think we have a better team outdoors than we did indoors and we won the championship there,” he said. “I feel really good about this. If all of us go out there and give it our best, I feel like we will come home champions.”