This year red-shirt junior Zye Boey competed in his first full season since a knee injury sidelined him last season.

Boey returned better than ever to have arguably one of the best indoor and outdoor seasons in Eastern history. It is that type of performance that makes Zye Boey The Daily Eastern News Male Athlete of the Year.

In the indoor season, Boey started strong and finished strong. He opened the season at the EIU Early Bird, the Panthers’ debut indoor meet of the season, and swept the 60-meter dash and 200-meter dash.

He closed out his return to the indoor season with a seventh place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas at Texas A&M University.

Boey broke the all-time Eastern indoor 200-meter dash record at the Notre Dame Meyo Invite with a time of 20.89 seconds, breaking the former record, also set by Boey, by 0.02 seconds.

When it was time to move to the outdoors, Boey picked up right where he left off from his indoor season and began breaking records. Boey topped off the EIU Big Blue Classic with a record-breaking 10.15 second time in the 100-meter dash.

Boey gives a lot of credit to his coaches and athletic trainers who helped him throughout his rehabilitation process after suffering the injury. He said a big part of returning to the track was believing.

“Really, the main key is believing in the coaches and athletic trainers,” Boey said.

He said he put faith in everything they said to him and that helped him rebound this season.

Boey also said he wasn’t at all nervous about returning for a full season, and that he was determined to make the jump back into competition.

“It really wasn’t too much of a surprise,” Boey said, “I just really, like I said, wanted to enhance the program.”

And enhance the program he has. At the NCAA Indoor Championship, as the Panthers’ lone representative, Boey said he wanted to put Eastern on the map. The Panthers are among the best in the Midwest Region, and the highest ranking Ohio Valley Conference team in the regional and national rankings.

Being one of the most successful athletes to walk the campus of Eastern, Boey has started to become somewhat of a face of Eastern athletics, winning The DEN’s weekly “Top Cat” award for the week’s best athletic performance numerous times throughout the year.

“I wouldn’t say I’m the face of Eastern, but it’s an honor to be in the same category as all of those other athletes,” Boey said.

Boey said he just tries to do a good job, have fun and achieve success in the classroom and on the track.

Boey was awarded the Merit Award at the Scholar Athlete awards banquet for holding a GPA of 3.00 to 3.49.

With the long, hard hours of work Boey has put in, he feels that he has earned the titled of Athlete of the Year.

“I’m excited to be Athlete of the Year. I think I’ve earned it,” he said.

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