BY ROBERT HUSSEMAN
EUGENE, Ore. — Asked about the sports he played in high school, Arkansas redshirt sophomore decathlete Nathanael Franks is momentarily stuck.
He’s named four thus far — football, soccer, cross country and basketball. “I’m missing one,” Franks says. He is not missing handball or tennis, sports he played while participating in a study-abroad program in Germany his sophomore year of high school. (Franks is a dual German-American citizen.)
“And track! There we go,” he says.
Yes, indeed. Track is important. Franks, a native of the Portland area and a graduate of Sam Barlow High School, has shrugged off left knee tendinitis, hamstring issues and personal disappointment to perform at Hayward Field in the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. He has given a part of himself to the decathlon; the sport is paying him back.
“This whole season, I knew that NCAAs would be in Oregon,” he says. “I had that goal (of making the NCAAs) in mind all year and I was so happy to finally be able to do it.”
Track and field is one small piece of the physical and intellectual entity that is Nathanael Franks. He has interests outside of track and field, and not just in other sports. What separates Franks from other student-athletes — other college students, really — is that he makes time to immerse himself in other interests or satisfy his curiosity.
To this end, he stands in the media tent twice over a college graduate. In two and a half years, he holds bachelor’s degrees in chemistry (graduating magna cum laude) and physics from the University of Arkansas, finishing with a 3.96 grade-point average. He is currently pursuing a master’s in business administration, with a concentration in finance.
Pursuing a master’s degree as an active athlete “definitely requires a lot of time management but it gives me a lot more free time, if you can imagine that,” Franks says. As an undergraduate, he regularly took course loads of 20 hours a term; as a master’s candidate, he’s down to 16 hours a term.
“I’d encourage those athletes who take a redshirt year to go for that master’s,” he says. “It’s definitely a way to go. I think that getting a master’s, because there’s a lot of one-year master’s programs, I think there’s a lot more to offer in terms of a career.”
In the immediate future, Franks has secured an internship with the Kellogg Company (headquartered in Rogers, Ark., 21 miles away from the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. In the long term:
“My 10-year goal would be to be a surgeon that would work in third-world countries,” Franks says. “(I’d like to) try to just meet needs that people can’t get otherwise physically.”
The incongruity of a prospective surgeon working toward an MBA is not lost on Franks.
“I think the reason behind that is, historically, doctors have been known to be the worst businessmen out there,” he says. “And I don’t want to be one of those guys. I want to use my money wisely and put it to good use, you know, and give it back to people that need it. There’s a lot of need out there.”
Franks has filled needs in his work with rEcess, a monthly respite program for parents of children with special needs, operated through the nonprofit 99balloons.org. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound decathlete plays with the children while the parents attend to important tasks.
“I actually learn more from them than they probably learn from me,” Franks says. “They’ve really taught me to just really value everything I have.”
He has also assumed a leadership role within the University of Arkansas’ International Culture Team, a group of international students on the Arkansas campus that plans inclusive events and speaks to local schoolchildren about the students’ cultural backgrounds.
Franks’ gifts extend to the musical realm. He plays the alphorn (think commercials for Ricola cough drops) and once performed a trumpet solo at the German Chancellery, the home and office of prime minister Angela Merkel. He selected Ode to Joy for the performance.
For all that he has done off the track, Franks was awarded the 2013 Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup in April. The award is named after the late UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden and awarded by the organization Athletes for a Better World. Franks was one of two Cup winners in 2013, the other being Hall of Fame golfer Jack Nicklaus. (Arizona high jumper Brigetta Barrett, who shined at NCAA Outdoors in winning the national title, was a finalist.)
“I’ve always been a little bit better student than an athlete,” Franks admits, “but hopefully I’ll pick up in the athletic realm pretty soon.”
NCAA Outdoors represented a good start. Franks finished 16th overall with a score of 7,649 points. He set a four-second personal-best in the 1,500-meter run (4 minutes, 15.52 seconds), crossing the line second to Duke’s Curtis Beach (4:03.64) in that event. Franks also took fourth place in the 400 (48.83).
“I did really poorly in eight events and a lot better in two,” he says.
“Overall, I kind of competed sub-optimally, but it was great to come home and be a part of a good team. There were, what, seven people over 8,000 (points)? [Actually, six.] This is probably the best field there’s ever been, so I’m really happy about that.”
The decathlon is said to be, at its core, a test of humility. To succeed is willfully subvert the athlete through 10 events, mastering none while maximizing his capabilities.
It is easy to see the appeal of the event to Nathanael Franks, German-American, five-sport high school athlete, alphornist. He lives by its principles to begin with.
Robert Husseman at [email protected].
