MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- For McCallie's Pierce DeRico, Tuesday wasn't about winning. It was simply about finishing.
In a chapel speech to his McCallie schoolmates, DeRico had lowered his head in shame and admitted his most embarrassing moment in athletics, a day when twice he stopped competing.
In a regular-season track meet last season, DeRico was a strong contender in both the 110- and 300-meter hurdles but wound up barely finishing both races. He was clipped by a competitor in the 110-meter event, knocking him out of his lane and leaving him so far behind that he jogged to the finish line.
He said he was so frustrated that his timing was off enough in the 300 that he led with the wrong foot and by the time he corrected himself, the pack of competitors again left him far behind. So again he limped slowly around the track to the finish.
"I quit, basically," DeRico said. "I was so ashamed after I did that that I swore I would never quit anything else in my life. I got up during chapel and spoke to everybody about how bad it felt to quit something and to never do what I did. I've wanted to make up for that ever since it happened."
Tuesday afternoon, with the heat registering 87 degrees on a bank clock across the street from the Middle Tennessee State University track, DeRico completed the most grueling, soul-sapping event of the entire Spring Fling, finishing fourth overall in the Division II decathlon. During the 10-event, two-day ordeal, DeRico won the 110-meter hurdles and the discus and most impressively sprinted to the finish for a strong second place in the final event, the 1500-meter run.
He accomplished this, and quieted the demons that had followed him for more than a year, all on a throbbing left knee that he hyperextended during warmups Tuesday.
"It was very important for me to sprint to the end of that race," said DeRico, who will run for Davidson College next year. "When I hurt my knee, it really scared me. I thought my day was over at first, but I kept thinking about how I told everybody during chapel not to quit. I think I was tested today. There was a point where I could have quit again, but that stayed in my mind all day, and no matter what, I was going to finish today.
"I wanted to make sure I became an example of not giving up. There is a lot of pride for me to be able to say I'm a decathlete. I'm pretty good at a lot of events but not great at any, so it's a good competition for me, and I like going against the best of the best in the state."
Even Blue Tornado teammate Keenan Hale, who finished second in the D-II decathlon, was impressed with his childhood friend's determination at the end.
"Nobody likes the 1500-meter run after you've competed so hard over two days in so many other events," said Hale, a junior who is being recruited by numerous college football teams. "He ran stronger at the end of the race, though, and that's not easy to do.
"Football is a tough sport, but doing these events in two days in this heat is the toughest thing you can do."
Hale's 6,275 point total and DeRico's 6,024 mark the first time in school history that McCallie had two competitors score more than 6,000 points. The Blue Tornado, who last week had 13 individual champions in earning their ninth region title in the last 10 years, go into Friday's state track meet leading in team points.
"You really have to mentally prepare yourself to be a decathlete," McCallie coach Mike Wood said. "It's not just about brute strength. It can almost be overwhelming mentally, but to me today was a testament to Pierce hanging in there and just continuing to work at it and finish strong."