The 2023 Track Guy Foundation’s Speaker Series kicked off Wednesday night, as Foundation President Mike Jay welcomed 1996 Olympic gold medalist Dan O’Brien, paralympians Erin Kerkhoff and Jessica Heims, and current Iowa All-American Austin West to Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City.

Jay, the longtime announcer for multiple track events in Iowa, including the Drake Relays and Iowa high school state meet, started the Track Guy foundation “for the sole purpose of giving back to the great sports of Track and Field and Cross Country,” according to the foundation’s website. 

Created in 2018, Jay said the foundation began with small goals but grew rapidly. 

“We were hoping to give away 25 shoes a year and two scholarships per year,” Jay said. “It’s just nuts, it’s just crazy how it’s grown.”

Since its conception, the foundation, Jay said, has gifted 461 pairs of shoes and given 39 $500 scholarships. 

Jay said the foundation collects money through sale of various merchandise items and donations. Although the foundation has held Speaker Series events before and put on a youth hurdle clinic three weeks ago, Jay was adamant that he will never charge a fee to attend a Track Guy Foundation event. 

T-shirts and other items were on sale Wednesday night for the roughly 200 people who attended the foundation’s first speaker series event since before the pandemic.

The speaker series, which is set to host another event in March at the Big Grove location in Cedar Rapids, has a simple mission to “educate fellow Iowans on the rich history of cross country and track and field in our great state,” according to the foundation’s website.

Wednesday’s marquee guest, however, has minimal connections to Iowa. Dan O’Brien came to Iowa City because of his connection with Jay. 

The 1996 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, who has since become one of the country’s most prominent track and field broadcasters, spoke with Jay at the U.S. Championships in June about supporting the Track Guy Foundation.

“I’m in the press box for U.S.A track and field events, get to know him a little bit,” O’Brien said of Jay. “He’s one of the best guys in the sport of track and field. He’s one of the most dedicated, selfless, you know … if I need notes and I’m doing a field event, and they throw it at me last-minute, he’s like, ‘Here’s my notes take ‘em.’ He’s just a guy who loves the sport of track and field and that comes through.”

Jay said O’Brien, who charges thousands of dollars for some speeches, came to Iowa City for the price of the plane ticket. 

“He asked me at the U.S. championships, ‘Hey, I want to help your foundation. What can I do?’ And I jokingly said, ‘Well, I want you to come from Arizona to Iowa in the middle of January and speak. He said, ‘OK,I’ll be there.’ Hopefully there’s some high school kids here today that’ll be in the same room with an Olympic gold medalist. That’s something I always wished for as a kid. So it’s crazy how [the foundation] has grown.”

Jay began the night by welcoming the guests, and giving some background on his foundation before welcoming O’Brien and paralympians Jessica Heims and Erin Kerkoff to the stage. 

Heims, a two-time paralympic thrower, and Kekoff, a paralympian in the 400-meter dash discussed how they each overcame obstacles in their lives.

Heims, from Cedar Rapids, had her leg amputated below the knee soon after she was born because of a disease called amniotic band syndrome. Kerkoff, a native of Solon, has a vision impairment due to optic nerve atrophy. 

“My family did a very good job early on and making sure that I understood that I had a disability and that’s not a bad thing,” Heims said. “My family really helped me have a positive mindset about it and made sure that anything that came in my way because of my disability, I could overcome it or find a way around it.”

Kerkoff said it took her a while to realize she had a vision impairment, but she figured out that she wasn’t at a disadvantage on the track. 

“I didn’t really even realize that kids could see a lot farther than me until about fourth grade,” Kerkoff said. “But I can remember the Solon track and field day, like in third grade, that’s when I started to love track. And I realized that was like the one place where I didn’t feel different. Everything else was different. In the classroom I had all this big equipment, but on the track I was like ‘Oh, I’m just like everybody else.’ I think I just started to fall in love with the sport in third grade and then I just never really let it stop me.”

After Kerkoff and Heims spoke, O’Brien told his personal story of redemption. 

Growing up in Oregon, O’Brien told the crowd he always wanted to be a Duck, but after four state titles, Oregon didn’t offer him a scholarship. Instead, he attended the University of Idaho.

But academic troubles kept O’Brien from competing for the Vandals during his freshman year, and were the reason he lost his scholarship as a sophomore.

“Boom, I’m out of the dorms, I got no money to pay for school … I didn’t go home for Christmas because I was too embarrassed to tell my parents and friends that I wasn’t in school.”

O’Brien stayed in Idaho and after some time scraping by working at a cabinet store, he asked the Idaho coach how to get back on the roster. 

The decision to pick himself up led O’Brien to Spokane Falls Community College, and then back to Idaho to finish out his college career. 

Then, O’Brien was invited to join the VISA U.S. Decathlon team, where he met Olympic legends of the past. 

O’Brien said he was asked during one of the first decathlon team clinics “what do you want to be son?”

“I had my moment,” O’Brien recalled. “It was like the ray of light came down and the choir came up in the background, and out of nowhere, I don’t know where the courage came from, I said, ‘I said I want to be the world’s greatest athlete.’”

O’Brien spent the rest of the night telling the crowd about how he overcame the failure of 1992, when he came to the Olympic trails after a World Championship, didn’t clear the pole vault, and didn’t qualify for the Olympic team. 

He said that experience taught him to train harder, and to expect the unexpected. Four years later, he was an Olympic gold medalist. 

“My averages won out,” O’Brien said of the Olympic victory. “That wasn’t my best decathlon, but the work I put in paid off. My average was good enough.”

O’Brien ended the night with a quick interview with current Iowa All-American decathlete Austin West, where the two discussed the work it takes to be one of the best Decathletes in the country.

Tyler Humiston, a senior on the Columbus Junction High School track and cross country team, was in the crowd Thursday.

Humiston said he came because his track coach brought the team to a similar event in 2019, and he wanted to support Jay.

“We came the year right for COVID and we enjoyed that one, our coach brought us, and then he brought us again this year with a smaller group,” Humiston said. “We came up because we knew it was a good event and Mike Jay is from our hometown. So we knew we should support somebody that supports us.”

“The biggest thing I took away is don’t give up and keep pushing every day,” Humiston continued. “Even if you’re sore, even if you’re hurt. Even if you need to take a day off, take it off but don’t give up because it’s always going to come to a better outcome.”