Neville comes home again
Chris Pickrell |
IDS
IU alumnus David Neville returned Saturday afternoon to IU after competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Neville won a bronze and a gold medal in the 400-meter dash and the 4 X 100-meter relay, respectively.
By
Jeremy Rosenthal |
IDS
POSTED AT
10:45 PM ON Oct. 26, 2008
| PRINT |
Email
| SHARE
| COMMENTS (0)
IU alumnus David Neville has a professional contract with Nike, two Olympic medals from the Beijing games and a day named after him in his hometown of Merrillville.
This weekend, Neville, a star on the IU track and field team from 2003 to 2006, received a standing ovation from the Memorial Stadium crowd as he flashed his two medals – the bronze from the 400-meter dash and the gold as part of the record setting 4x400-meter relay team.
This represented Neville’s own homecoming, his first time back in Bloomington since he returned to get his music degree in 2007 after leaving early to sign a professional contract with Nike in 2006.
“I’m really happy to come back and see a lot of old friends, teachers, coaches and people I haven’t seen in a while,” he said in an interview Friday at the IU indoor track. “To be back in the spirit of IU is something that feels really good.”
Neville graduated from Merrillville High School in 2002 after setting the state meet record of 46.99 seconds in the 400-meter dash. In his first year at IU he dealt with a setback, as an English class he took in high school didn’t count for NCAA standards and he was deemed ineligible to compete his freshman year.
He comes from a family of track athletes. His grandfather, David Neville, ran in the 1940s and 1950s as part of an all-Army track team and his father David Neville II went to the Virginia Military Institute on a track scholarship. His father wrote workouts for his son when he couldn’t practice with the team.
In addition to practicing on the track with only his now-wife Arial Neville, who timed him, he performed as a drummer in the Marching Hundred Band.
Once given the opportunity to compete, Neville collected four Big Ten Championship awards and five All-American honors in three years at IU.
David Neville II said he remembers watching the Olympics growing up and said he felt proud to see his son represent the United States in the Beijing Olympics.
“From the time I was a child watching the Olympics on TV, and to get there in person and realize our son is competing in the Olympics against the best people in the world, and he’s one of the best in the world, was a tremendous experience,” he said.
Neville’s wife, grandfather and parents screamed from the stands in Beijing as their loved one came down the final 100 meters of his 400-meter race and literally sacrificed his body, diving head-first across the finish line to secure the bronze medal by a mere .04 seconds.
As eyes darted to the scoreboard to see the results of the race, Neville’s wife said she was flooded with emotions.
“I saw all the hard work and determination and through all the pain he had been through and everything,” she said. “To see him accomplish what he really set out to do was indescribable. My heart was feeling so much joy.”
Through all of his success ,Neville has always stayed humble, giving back to IU as a volunteer assistant coach, and remaining a devout Christian, helping at a youth ministry in Valencia, Calif., something his father is especially pleased with.
“One of the great things that we were very proud about is there has been no display that David has gotten a big head from the success or the accomplishments,” he said.
Instead, Neville will continue to train relentlessly for the London Olympics in 2012, something his mother Judith Neville said she is looking forward to.
“One of the things that he said is, ‘I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder,’” she said. “He would like to come back again and do it again and continue to do that.”
For Neville, he also sees himself as a role model for others and offered the following advice that he said has led him to great success on and off the track.
“Put your heart into everything that you do, and do it as hard as you possibly can,” he said, “and you can achieve those things you really want to achieve.”