PROVO — On the surface, the news coming out of the collegiate track and field championships in Arkansas last week was good news, but it wasn't anything to stop the presses.
Kyle Perry, a runner from Brigham Young University, had won the national championship in the steeplechase. A terrific accomplishment, to be sure, but hardly unprecedented. The legendary Henry Marsh, a four-time Olympian, was a steeplechaser from BYU, and three years ago another Cougar, Josh McAdams, was the NCAA steeplechase champion.
But wait a minute — Kyle Perry — hey, wasn't he the guy?
Yep, the mop guy.
Two years ago Kyle Perry quite unwittingly leapt into the nation's consciousness when he became involved in an automobile-pedestrian dispute in downtown Provo.
An angered jaywalker pushing a bucket and window-washing equipment across Center Street yelled at Perry in his car, claiming he almost hit him. Subsequent news reports suggested that Perry, identified as a star athlete, got out of his car, took away the man's mop and started whacking him with it.
Those news reports, it turned out, were based on inaccurate preliminary information provided by the police. Perry only grabbed a telescopic pole that the irate pedestrian was swinging at him. Ultimately, when all the facts came out, the case was dismissed and Perry was exonerated.
But after that, everywhere he went he was the mop guy.
It was the culmination of a bad patch for Perry. Weeks before the traffic incident, in late May, stomach surgery had forced him to miss the 2007 NCAA championships. The 6-foot-5, 150-pounder lost 15 pounds from the stomach ordeal and hospital stay — imagine Gandhi losing 15 pounds — and was just recovering when the national media and sports talk shows characterized him as a mop-swinging fiend.
But that was then, and this is two years later.
I caught up with Perry this week at the BYU track, where he paused before a workout to talk about what has transpired between being an alleged dangerous mop-whacker and a national champion.
"Well," he said, "after that mop thing it all started turning around."
For one thing, he got married later that summer, about the same time the court proceedings were canceled. Among other benefits, that helped put the 15 pounds back on.
For another, hitting bottom prompted him to get serious about getting the most out of his running talent.
He used the bad mop publicity as part of his motivation.
"I decided I wanted people to remember me for what I accomplished, not for something I didn't do," he said.
"My goal was to not be mediocre," he said. "No more slacking off in practice, no more just getting by. I set really lofty goals, some would call unrealistic."
The new mind-set and work ethic ushered in a productive junior season in 2008. Perry was third in the nation at 3,000 meters at the NCAA indoor championships and achieved an important personal goal when he ran a sub-four-minute mile with a 3:59 in a meet at the University of Washington.
That set the stage for his just-completed senior season. For starters, he finished 10th at the NCAA cross-country championships last fall. During the winter he was part of a BYU medley relay team that set school and conference records and finished fifth at the NCAA indoor championships. And then came the steeplechase final last week, when Perry, running in only the seventh competitive steeplechase of his life, lowered his pre-meet best from 8:40 to 8:29 and won the NCAA final by six full seconds.
When he announced his goal to run under 8:30 in the finals, many scoffed.
"I understood. It seemed unrealistic," said Perry. "But when your mind is stronger than your body, your body can do amazing things."
The mop talk, he said, hasn't gone completely away. Just a few weeks ago he was negotiating a deal to buy some camera gear on Craigslist and the seller recognized his name. "You're not the infamous Kyle Perry?" the man asked, and then agreed to the deal, "Only if you don't bring your mop."
But that was before Kyle Perry added "National Champion" to his name and realized his goal of getting national attention for something he did instead of something he didn't do.
Lee Benson's column runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com