NORTH BEND — When North Bend senior Travis Berrian pulled his hamstring twice in the opening weeks of the track and field season, his coaches and teammates probably would have understood if he’d just called it quits.

The prognosis wasn’t good: He’d have to sit out of competition — in his chosen events of pole vault and the 110- and 300-meter hurdles — for just about all of the season, rehabbing and training however he could, just to leave the door open for a possible last-minute return.

The initial injury came on his first pole vault attempt in the Far West League’s season-opening meet March 14, and the second while sprinting in a meet April 1. All this after Travis had given up his senior year of swimming last winter to train for track.

“This year I really focused on track,” he said. “I was just hoping I could have some races left. I wanted to compete.”

But a hamstring pull can be a lingering, painful and potentially dangerous injury. One doesn’t want to aggravate it by trying to do too much, too soon. So Travis patiently spent much of the track season working out in the pool, stretching, doing limited work on road and stationary bikes and jogging.

“I don’t know of too many other high school athletes that would have waited that long,” said North Bend track coach Steve Greif. “For high school kids, it’s often hard for them to see the big picture. For him to be injured that early on and be able to stick with it — it’s just great.”

Saturday his patience paid off, as Travis won Far West League titles in both the 110 high hurdles and 300 intermediate hurdles. The latter was a particularly gutsy performance, as Travis , clearly exhausted and out of step, hit the final two hurdles and fell across the finish line the winner by .20 seconds.

“This is just great, I love being back racing,” said Travis afterward, winded but lit up with excitement.

“I was relieved,” he added later. “I knew I was going to fall coming off that last hurdle. I was just trying to delay it as long as I could and get across the finish line.”

 Travis’ hurdles victories came in bursts of 15.55 and 42.26 seconds, but his battle to win districts started months ago, and much of the effort was mental. His coaches say Travis meticulously watched his competitors from the sideline all season long, tallying their best efforts to figure out what he’d have to do to beat them.

“He’s a smart athlete,” said Angie Duvall, North Bend’s sprints and hurdles coach. “He knows exactly what to expect. He could probably tell you what all the athletes’ PRs are.”

 Travis’ track smarts came into play at the district meet, as he knew that due to his lack of training this year he wouldn’t be able to outlast his opponents, especially in the 300 hurdles. So, he made a gamble.

“I knew I had to get out ahead; they were going to have more endurance than me,” he said. “I just tried to put it all in at the start, get a lead and finish.”

With that winning strategy Travis, racing in the hurdles for the second time this year — he gingerly competed at the Wally Ciochetti Invitational in Cottage Grove on May 9 — earned a trip to state in both events.

It’s been a long, frustrating journey.

After Travis first pulled his hamstring on the pole vault runway March 14, he continued working out, hoping that the injury wouldn’t prove too serious. Duvall kept him away from the hurdles, applying ice to the leg and running Travis through simple strides and jogging drills. Then, at an April 1 meet at Brookings, Travis entered the 100-meter race, just to compete in an event. The results proved disastrous.

“I felt it, almost like a popping feeling,” said Travis . “I ended up jogging across the line.”

From that point, Travis knew he’d be sitting out for most, if not all, of the remaining track and field season. He didn’t miss a step, though, calmly setting about the healing and rehabilitation process.

Duvall put him on an icing regimen, and worked up to strides, jogging and other basic fitness routines. But the real challenge, she said, was to keep focus throughout a long season where Travis couldn’t actually compete.

“He still showed up every night, even though he couldn’t do the workouts,” said Duvall. “He’s a strong mental athlete. He never told himself he couldn’t do it. And he did it.”

Travis started sprinting again about two weeks ago. He said his hamstring feels good as he heads into state competition, starting Friday with preliminaries in both hurdles races.

For Travis, competing in both makes real a dream — shared by six of his teammates — that was born in Eugene this time last year as the North Bend boys came up three points short of a state title. The Bulldog athletes and coaches had to watch as Marist snatched the prize from them in the meet’s final race, the 4x400 relay, an event in which North Bend didn’t have a team in the finals.  

Greif gathered the seven boys who competed at state and were coming back in 2008 and huddled them up in the middle of Hayward Field in Eugene: Travis and brother Trevor Berrian, Spenser Lynass, Steven Garboden, Elliot Adams, Lane Davison and Lane Seals.

“I told them, ‘Let’s meet back here again next year,’” said Greif. “We thought Travis was going to be the missing link because of his injury, but he found a way. ... They all clawed their way back, in one way or another.”

After he competes at state and eventually graduates, Travis plans to go on and be a part of a different kind of team; he’ll be attending the United States Air Force Academy next year.

“There’s a history in my family of serving our country,” he said. “I really felt I wanted to serve my country as well.”

Attending the Air Force Academy will cap what has amounted to an impressive high school career for Travis that has extended outside of athletics: He’s been a part of the Link Crew, a tutoring group serving underclassmen; a part of the Key Club, a school community group; a fine trumpet player for the North Bend Band; and a contestant in the Mr. Bulldog pageant, an event that raised $78,100 for Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Children’s Miracle Network.

And, by the way, Travis met President George W. Bush, as one of two Oregon boys chosen to participate in the 2007 Boys Nation, a prestigious week of government training in Washington, D.C.

“He has a lot of character,” said Greif.

But Travis has a couple things left to do before he heads to Colorado Springs, Colo., to study aeronautical engineering at the Air Force Academy — namely compete at state in both hurdles events. It’s the culmination of a track career Travis started in the fourth grade.

“Some people say they’re afraid of the hurdles,” said Berrian. “There’s something unnatural about them for the human body. But I’ve always been a hurdler. My freshman year I would do them, keep falling and get right back up. A lot of people might have stopped after they fell the first time. I knew back then I wanted to be a hurdler.”