Southeast Missouri State's Smith cherishes experience at NCAA Indoor Championships

Southeast Missouri State senior track & field athlete Blake Smith described the opportunity to compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships on Friday night as "a miracle from God."

When the Jackson native found out from his coaches last Sunday that he could compete in the 60-meter dash at the national meet, he understandably was taken aback.

Smith's best sprint of 6.65 seconds ranked 21st in the country and only the top 16 get to compete in the event at the Indoor Championships, but because of several medical scratches, he got his shot.

He finished 10th with a time of 6.66 in the preliminaries of the 60-meter dash Friday night in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

"I was coming in like a low 16th and ended up getting 10th. It's just nothing but a blessing," Smith said. "That's all I can say."

Smith, who had competed at the indoor championships in the long jump and finished 14th during his junior season, said the second time around was much less nerve-racking than last year's trip to nationals.

Part of that came from already having competed on the stage, but also because there's much less waiting around for the 60-meter race rather than an hour or so long process of long jumping.

"I get there and I do my warmup and what not, and I'm just kind of smiling and relaxing, and coach asked me if I'm ready to go and I just kind of smiled and said 'Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Ready as I'll ever be,'" Smith said. "Then I was out there, taking off my warmup clothes, getting into my uniform, and I noticed that all of a sudden it kind of just hit me, like all my nerves hit me at once.

"I was taking the sticker off for my number on my hips [of my uniform] and both my hands were shaking, and I couldn't do it. I don't know where that came from, it was just all my nerves hit me at once because I was getting ready to go, getting ready to run. I was 30 seconds or so from running. Then I just got into the blocks and prayed a little bit and just asked God to help me do my best -- not win or lose, but just to do my best for that day -- and that's what I did. I did everything I needed to do, and I ran my best and I'm happy with it."

Smith missed out on making the top 8 and advancing to compete in the finals on Saturday by 0.05 seconds. He was pleased with what he accomplished, though, because he knows that his time would have propelled him to the finals most other years.

"I looked up the results from last year's and the year before that in the 60-meter and saw what it took to get to the finals, and I knew it took exactly what I had," Smith said of his pre-meet research. "Like what my best was made the finals the last two years because not every single person will run their absolute best at nationals -- it's hard to do that. So I was like, 'Well, if I just do my best then maybe it will just all work out and I'll make finals,' so I went and unfortunately -- well, not unfortunately. It was a great experience, but that was the fastest group of 16 at indoor nationals ever in the history of indoor nationals. That was the fastest group of people that had ever been there, so it was definitely some tough competition with some elite athletes. It was just awesome."

Smith was joined by fellow Southeast senior Reggie Miller, who competed in the triple jump. Miller fouled out on all three of his jump attempts.

The Redhawks will turn to preparation for the outdoor track & field season now, which begins with the Alabama Relays on March 19-21.

"We're going to be getting back to work on strength again instead of speed and work on getting our strength back up and then we'll transition into speed later in the year," Smith said. "We're working on getting strong, and we're going to change my approach a little bit for long jump so that I can get more consistent on that, and maybe I can make it to outdoor [nationals] in both the 100 [meter dash] and the long jump."