Eastern will be sending one athlete to this weekend’s NCAA Indoor Championship in College Station, Texas. That athlete will be red-shirt junior Zye Boey.

Calling Boey simply an athlete is, if anything, an understatement. Boey is a freak of nature.

It is often extremely difficult for athletes to bounce back from a serious injury like the one Boey suffered last season. It would be expected for few bumps in the road when Boey returned to the indoor season after missing all of last year’s.

Boey has often said he is not completely 100 percent, but despite that, he is still leaving the competition in a trail of dust. There really is no one in the OVC that comes close to being on Boey’s level, and there’s only a few in the entire country that are.

I am glad that Boey is going to the NCAA Indoor Championships. Not only because I think he’s an amazing athlete, incredibly nice person and exciting to watch, but because I think he best personifies Eastern’s track and field team.

Eastern’s track team is full of hard working, never say never, run-until-your-heart-stops athletes, and Boey is the best example of that. This weekend, Boey will not only be representing himself, but the entire team as a whole.

Of all the other athletes Boey will be competing against this weekend, Boey is from by far the smallest school. The lineup is filled with some of the biggest names in collegiate track and field.

Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State, Arkansas, and then smack dab in the middle of that is little ol’ Eastern Illinois. I do not think the bigger schools take Eastern seriously or see the Panthers as a threat, just because of the university’s size. That was apparent with that comment from the University of Illinois pole vaulter a while back who said the Illini were going to “crush Eastern.” That same week, Eastern gave one of their best performances of the season against some of the best competition in the state.

But it is not just the competition who isn’t taking Eastern seriously. Eastern gets no love in the Midwest Regional polls either. The same week Eastern dominated the OVC Indoor Championships, they were knocked down one spot in the rankings. Again this week, the Panthers are on the outside looking in, sitting at No. 11. The other teams in the top 10 are great, but I whole-heartedly believe that Eastern could go toe to toe with any of them and make it interesting.

I am confident that Zye Boey will make Eastern proud this weekend and show the nation and any other non-believers that Eastern can run with the big boys.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7944 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu