Nebraska assistant track and field coach T.J. Pierce likens competing in the heptathlon to painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
“You start painting one end,” Pierce said, "and it takes so long that by the time you get done painting the other end, you turn around and start over again.”
Jared Seay has lived that reality for nearly four years now, despite only high jumping in high school.
“I wasn’t even a big fan of track,” Seay said. “I was a big football guy. I quickly found out there was no way I could do both.”
His coach at Iowa Central Community College, the late Denny Myers, then turned Seay into a decathlete against his will.