Terry Yeast got his photo with Abby Steiner after Mercer County won the state track championships. He got another one Sunday after she won her first USA Track & Field championship.
Having a front-row seat to history doesn’t happen often but it did for Mercer County High School track coach Terry Yeast Sunday in Eugene, Ore.
Yeast has worked as an official at the USA Track & Field Championships or Olympic Trials every year but one since 2012 and was an umpire for the long and triple jumps this year.
He was working Sunday when recent University of Kentucky graduate Abby Steiner won the 200-meter dash — and a spot in the upcoming World Championships — in 21.77 seconds into a slight headwind. She was wearing her UK uniform while running the fastest time in the world this year. The previous best this year was the 21.80 she had in the NCAA Championship to set a new collegiate record and then matched earlier Sunday in the USA semifinals.
Steiner didn’t dominate from the start as she had to chase down Tamara Clark and Jenna Prandini in the final 50 meters but her finishing kick was just too strong for anyone to withstand.
“It was pretty amazing,” Yeast said. “I literally had a front-row seat. Just before the race started, I was in the (official’s chair) and not raking the pit. The timing was perfect. I got to see the entire race and it was so cool.”
“When she came off the turn, I had to watch the big screen since I was near the finish line. She hit the straightaway and just hit another gear like she usually does. Then I saw that time.”
Even the NBC-TV commentators had predicted Steiner would dominate the race and you wondered if maybe she was a bit slow is why the race was close. Instead, it was more about the competition as the final time proved.
“She was running against great competition but no one else has that special gear like her,” Yeast said.
He also got to watch former UK star Sydney McLaughlin, a two-time gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, break her own world record in the 400-meter hurdles earlier in the meet.
“I was in the middle of an event and was there down the straightaway for the finish. I could hear the announcer on the backstretch and hear the excitement,” Yeast said. “Then I heard another world record. I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’ How cool was it to be able to witness a world record.”
However, it got better for the Mercer coach.
When both his boys and girls won the Class AA state team championships in Lexington, the Titans got to meet Steiner and take pictures with her before they left the UK track.
Yeast managed to get a picture with her again Sunday.
“When I first walked up to her I told her I did not know if she would remember us meeting at the state track meet. She said, ‘Oh my God. I remember.’ She was so sweet and kind again just a little bit after winning the USA championship,” Yeast said. “I said I would like to take another picture with her and she was kind enough to do it.”
