Oregon senior decathlete Billy Pappas has been competing for only one month after suffering an injury that kept him out of the indoor season and a large chunk of the outdoor season.
Oh, how far he’s come.
Pappas was named the Pacific-10 Conference’s men’s track and field Athlete of the Week on Monday after winning the conference decathlon title on Sunday. The conference award is usually broken up into a track winner and a field winner, but Pappas was the only athlete to win the award this week, possibly because he did everything in winning the Pac-10 decathlon title.
Pappas won the title in only his second decathlon of the season by amassing a personal-best and NCAA-qualifying total of 7,532 points.
“So many things can go wrong in every event, but I stayed positive and worked on my confidence, so I am happy with how it turned out,” Pappas said.
Pappas ensured the Ducks a share of the team lead heading into the second weekend of the conference championships. Aided by Jason Slye’s fifth-place showing in the decathlon, Oregon garnered 14 points to tie for the Pac-10 Championships lead with Southern California, which placed athletes second and fourth. Washington State is third with six points.
This weekend, Pappas will return to Pullman to try and score even more points for the Ducks. The senior ranks 16th in the conference in the 110-meter hurdles, and will compete in the event this weekend. In an interesting twist of fate, Pappas was ranked 16th in the decathlon heading into last year’s NCAA Championships, before scoring a then-personal best 7,488 points to finish eighth.
Before the NCAAs “I’m going to do some speed training, since my 100 meters is really hurting me,” Pappas said. Before the Pac-10s “I’ll concentrate on hurdles since I’m coming back (this weekend) to hurdle here.”
Pappas may also compete in the long jump this weekend. He finished eighth at last season’s Pac-10 Championships in that event.

Multi-athletes for multi-events
Pappas will be gone next year, but the Ducks won’t be starving for decathletes by any stretch of the imagination.
Along with Slye, Santiago Lorenzo — Oregon’s first-ever NCAA champion in the decathlon — will return to action after redshirting this season. Doug Sells, a perpetually-injured sophomore who could be a force if he stays healthy, could also add to next year’s decathlon crew.
And then there’s Gabriel LeMay, the ninth member of Oregon’s 2002-03 recruiting class. LeMay, a sophomore junior-college transfer from Lane Community College, won the NWAACC decathlon this year and has Oregon head coach Martin Smith thinking about a Duck sweep at the conference championships next season.
“His presence softens the loss of Billy Pappas,” Smith said. “He’s a great student with a 4.0 GPA, and on the track his versatility will boost us in other areas besides the decathlon.”
LeMay’s personal best of 6,832 points would have been good enough for sixth at the conference championships this season.

Powerful silliness
Another week, another check-in with the eggheads at www.team-power.org. This week we’ll use the dual-meet simulator to figure out the Pac-10 champion.
The Ducks are ranked 10th in the country by the Web site, third among Pac-10 teams. But what would happen if Oregon took on the top seven other Pac-10 teams in a tournament setting, playing each of the squads in one-and-done dual meets? Sort of like basketball’s version of the conference championship.
In the first round, UCLA, Oregon and Arizona State advance by goose-egging USC, Stanford and Arizona, respectively. Washington State struggles against Washington, edging the Huskies 104-99. In the Final Four, UCLA kills Washington State 119-84, while Arizona State ends Oregon’s season 109-93.
In an anti-climactic finale, UCLA proves why it’s the second-best team in the country by handling Arizona State, 110-93.
Ah, if only Pac-10 track was run by hoops fans.