2012 Junior National Championships

The decision to send Tanner to the national track and field championships was not an easy one.  It was going to be expensive.  He was going to miss the orientation for incoming BYU students.  If he did qualify to go to Spain, he would be missing the equivalent of two weeks of classes for his first college semester.  Eric and I started weighing the pros and cons, checking finances, checking timing, and figuring out our options.  We both felt like we needed to provide Tanner the opportunity, but didn't know how to make it all work.  We made it a matter of prayer and from there went on faith.

We knew the best place for Tanner to be this summer was at BYU.  We felt we needed to move forward with him attending school rather than deferring his enrollment until fall.  We also knew we needed to send Tanner to Indiana to compete in nationals.  After getting those answers, we didn't know how it was all going to work out but we decided to take it one step at a time.

Are we ready for this?

Oh, yeah!

Jason - the body guard

The weekend of nationals was the same weekend Tanner was supposed to be checking in to BYU. Instead of a family road trip, we sent Tanner on a plane to Indiana where he met up with my brother, Jason, who drove down to Bloomington from Michigan to be Tanner's coach and buddy for the weekend at the meet.  They stayed in the dorms at Indiana State University.  Jason took good care of him, he made sure Tanner was where he needed to be when he needed to be there, and that his stomach was full and his head was in the game.  Eric and I said we would cover the expenses (to a certain extent).

"Fast guys need fast cars."

No, we didn't reimburse for the speeding ticket.

Tanner and Jason at the Indiana airport EARLY Sunday morning - Father's Day.

This was the right thing to do.  Tanner needed some Uncle Jason time.  Eric and I loaded up his stuff and started the drive to BYU without him.  We would fly Tanner from Indiana to Salt Lake on Sunday after the meet and pick him up on our way through to Provo.

Tanner leading the first heat in the 2012 National Junior Championships 

It about killed us that we couldn't be there to see Tanner run.  Eric's work was very generous and let us set up a conference call with Jason when Tanner was scheduled to run.  That way we could hear the play by play.  We were still in Vancouver for the preliminaries, but had to make sure we had cell service as we were driving through Idaho during the finals.  We ended up pulling into Burleyand sitting at the park by the river while we were on the call.  I think there were probably 20 people that called in: friends, family and admirers who all wanted to know how Tanner's race was going.  We couldn't figure out why Jason was not telling us what was going on the last few seconds of the race.  When we pulled into Pocatello we stopped at a Starbucks and watched the race video that had been posted on the iPad.  I knew the outcome and my heart was still in my throat watching it transpire.

Tanner deciding the last 50 yards he really wanted to go to Spain!

 Junior Team USA's 800m runners:  Tanner Sork and Shaquille Walker

Tanner had some pretty neat experiences while he was in Bloomington.  He was able to hang out with Shaquille Walker (800m runner from BYU) who would be running the same event as Tanner and work a little bit with Coach Ed Eyestone.  Several of the BYU runners came from their varied events that weekend to watch these two run.  They all took Tanner under their wings and made sure he had everything he needed to be successful.  Including special spikes for the track that Tanner didn't know about.  They were ready to disqualify him, but Ryan Waite stepped up and had an extra set he put in Tanners shoes.

Here is a link to view the 800m final race:  http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=7289&do=videos&video_id=71872

Tanner registering for Team USA.
To follow:  Drug testing, apparel fitting, uniform selection,
and international travel document check.

Tanner's flight back to Salt Lake just happened to be with Miles Batty and Ryan Waite, runners from the BYU track team.  They gave him a little new-student orientation on the plane ride so he would be all ready for classes that started the next day (including telling him he needed to change his schedule first thing - college calculus was not going to be a good class to miss for his trip to Spain.) When they walked off the plane, Shalyce and the girls, Eric and I were there with big posters congratulating Tanner.  We were so star struck by Miles and Ryan we didn't even recognize it was Tanner walking right in between them.

Sunday we got Tanner set up in his dorm and re-worked his schedule as much as we could.  Monday we met with the coaches between classes who walked us through the steps of being a student athlete and being academically successful.  Monday night we left Tanner (he didn't even give us a kiss or hug goodbye, he was so busy (Yes, this made me cry way more than I was planning on.)  Tanner had a lot to figure out in a short amount of time.  We left him with an incomplete class schedule, no internet functioning in his dorm, textbooks still sitting at the bookstore, and no BYU ID.  But we knew he was in good hands and would be well taken care of.  The Lord was answering our prayers, and He had a plan for Tanner.  He was heading to Spain!