Emmie Boese
Lantern Staff
Sophomore Tavarius Wright, business major from Memphis, Tennessee, begins the end of his Butler career by becoming a national champion and breaking a record.
Wright recently became the national champion in the 60m dash, as well as breaking the school record in this event. Wright set the record with an event time of 6.61 seconds at the national meet. He had previously tied the school record a few weeks before at the Region VI meet with a time of 6.64 seconds.
Wright had a good idea that he probably broke the school record after the race was over. He also felt confident going into it that he would win.
“I knew when I looked up, because before I had tied the school record already,” Wright said. “I just ran across the field. I felt like I could win because I was prepared for the race. I didn’t know I was going to go that fast.”
Wright’s coach Greg Franklin felt confident for awhile that Wright had a chance to break the school record.
“I kind of felt he was going to win after the first meet,” Franklin said. “To me, he’ll run fast and have better push… he should win it.”
Wright runs the 60m, 100m, 200m and 4x100m events for Butler’s track team and is pleased with his time at Butler so far. He felt confident before joining the team that Butler was the place for him.
“I came to Butler because of Coach Greg really,” Wright said. “Just felt like he could train me and get me better.”
Despite the success Wright has had this year, track was not always on the radar for him. Wright started running track his junior year of high school. He was previously a basketball player before he ever ran track.
When Wright first started running track, he primarily ran hurdles. Franklin said it caught them by surprise when they found out Wright could run sprints.
“I just ended up in the track coach’s class, and he asked me to come out one day,” Wright said. “I loved playing basketball just as much, but I ended up being good at track. It just changed course.”
From last season to this season, Franklin described Wright as a sprinter that greatly emerged this year.
“You know last year he came in, and we didn’t even know he was going to be a sprinter,” Franklin said.