Texas senior Leo Neugebauer wore the grind of his athletic calling on Wednesday’s first day of the Texas Relays.

On day one of the decathlon, meet organizers moved up the final event — the 400-meter dash — 30 minutes to get ahead of rain that was entering the area.

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Just 15 minutes earlier, the world’s No. 3 decathlete had completed the high jump by clearing 6 feet, 8¾ inches, a personal second-best.

Neugebauer was, in a word, gassed, after winning four of the five opening events.

“How are you feeling?” coach Edrick Floréal asked after giving his charge a hug.

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“Man, I’m tired,” said the 6-foot-7, 240-pound star.

“I’m tired of yelling at you,” the coach, ever the jokester, said with a smile.

A day later, he collapsed to the track and lay on his back after finishing event No. 10, the dreaded 1,500-meter run.

The decathlon is a truth revealer.

Lovers of track and field understand that only the most mentally tough and physically strong can excel in the sport’s two-day, 10-event gantlet.

The 23-year-old Neugebauer has the potential to be an all-time great. He closed out the competition with 8,708 points, the third-highest output in NCAA history and tops in Relays history. He is in great position to make a legitimate run at Olympic gold in Paris this summer.

“My body is feeling great,” he said. "I’m just trying to stay consistent. I’m feeling great about the summer.”

The building of a champion

Neugebauer's and Floréal's relationship is built on a promise made five years ago.

Back in 2019, the German prodigy had decided he would attend Minnesota. Texas was on his short list of options, so he decided to call Floréal and give him the news.

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Just as he has done with countless others in a decorated tenure as head coach, Floréal has steadied Neugebauer’s path with a patient approach and the perfect mix of mentorship and space.

Flo, one of the best closers in the business, flipped the script.

“We had a long chat, and I told him, ‘If you commit to Texas, I promise you that I will take care of you. I will be personally responsible for you,’ ” Floréal said

He also made a pretty bold prediction.

“ ‘Leo, you will be a superstar,’ ” he said. “He told me he would just be glad to get a degree and get out of Texas. What has happened is beyond his wildest dreams."

“He held up his promise,” Neugebauer said.

Neugebauer arrived in Austin and earned All-America honors, winning the indoor heptathlon before the pandemic canceled the outdoor season. Now a six-time All-American and a fifth-place finisher at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last summer, he is poised to become not only an Olympic medalist in Paris in a few months, but a sports icon in Germany, a country that’s well past due in the area of a global superstar.

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He has the ultimate goal of becoming the fourth man to top 9,000 points in the decathlon. American Ashton Eaton, a two-time Olympic champion, did it twice.

“I’m just trying my best from event to event,” Neugebauer said. “I’m not looking at certain things and what I’m trying to do, but I’m really curious as to where my way is leading.”

Greatness. That’s where it’s leading.

A near-breakthrough in Budapest

Track enthusiasts knew of Neugebauer’s immense potential before he arrived in the States. The German youth athletics setup is similar to what the U.S. practiced before sports become too specialized.

Not only do the Germans demand that their first graders take English lessons, but they enroll kids in three sports at a young age and add more to the list as they get older. It’s ideal for developing athletes for one of the sport’s most physically taxing events.

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Neugebauer, the son of Terence, a former Cameroonian soccer player who works as a truck driver, and German-born Diana, who works in the financial industry, grew up just outside of Stuttgart. He gravitated to soccer and track at a young age and found out he was good at most every sport he tried. That’s not surprising, given his current vocation.

Germans call it "zehnkampf," which translates in English to "decathlon."

“The Germans being good in the decathlon is kind of like the Dallas Cowboys being good for the NFL,” said 1996 Olympic and three-time world decathlon champion Dan O’Brien, now a commentator and one half of Reebok's cool Dan and Dave advertising campaign in the early 1990s. “Germany is one of those historic countries who have always produced world-class decathletes.”

To his point, Germany and the United States have competed in the Thorpe Cup, an annual dual meet of decathletes and heptathletes from each country, dating back to 1993.

O’Brien was at the World Championships in Budapest last August when Neugebauer, fresh off an NCAA record 8,836 points at his home track two months earlier — he broke Jürgen Hingsen’s 39-year-old German record — roared into first place with 4,640 points, the second-most ever scored on a decathlon's first day. Then ranked No. 13 in the world, he  ran 10.69 in the 100 meters and later ran a brisk 47.99 in the 400.

This all came in a field that included 2020 Olympic gold medalist Damian Warner.

The second day didn’t go his way. His 30-point lead disappeared as eventual gold medalist Warner and three others overtook him. A late night finish and an early morning start didn’t help one of the world’s largest decathletes. He ran a disappointing 14.75 in the opening event, the 110-meter hurdles. A top-five finish was great, but it could have been much, much more.

An international breakthrough would have to wait.

“His legs were as stiff as a board, and he didn’t commit to the warmup,” Floréal said. “Mentally, he wasn’t running as hard as he could, and when you’re not committed to running the hurdles, they will punish you.”

The hurdles were an old nemesis. He fell in his first NCAA Championships and clipped a hurdle in the next and did not finish. He ran well on Thursday’s day two in 14.51, though the relationship remains complicated.

“Hurdles is always a very mental event,” he said. “I’m always trying to learn from my mistakes. I had a really clean, solid race today. I’m trying to get mentally better each time.”

New breed of college athlete

There was a time when a college athlete’s life was pretty simple: Hit the books; go to practice; perform in the event. Rinse and repeat.

Most of the more popular athletes not only balance academics and sports but also manage name, image and likeness portfolios while catering to a huge social media audiences.

Neugebauer, an economics major, has an Instagram following of 210,000 — the snazzy dresser actually posts an Outfit of the Day — and a YouTube subscriber base approaching 6,000. He also hosts a podcast. Did I mention that he dabbles in photography?

“I have a  minor in entrepreneurship, and my end goal is to establish a startup and own a business,” he said. “Right now, I’m concentrating on the decathlon. I’m not looking too far ahead.”

His days are full, and that’s by design.

“I don’t know how he juggles it,” Floréal said. “The more stuff he has on his plate, the better he does. The more distractions they have, the less time they have to think about their life, the pressures and the anxiety. It allows them a chance to keep themselves functioning.”

Superstardom beckons

Germany is past time for a new superstar.

It’s been a minute since Steffi Graf won Wimbledon. Katarina Witt last won ice skating Olympic gold in 1988. Soccer player Mesut Özil retired last year.

Shoot, Boris Becker went to prison for tax evasion.

Neugebauer is an overwhelming favorite to defend his NCAA outdoor title in  Eugene, Ore., in June, and that momentum — and the experience in Hungary — could be enough to propel him into another stratosphere with a win in Paris.

Only two Germans — Will Holdorf in 1964 and Christian Schenk in 1988 — have captured Olympic gold in the event since American Jim Thorpe won the first one in 1912.

If Neugebauer breaks through on the sport’s biggest stage, his bright star will give the sun a run for its money.

He’s already big in his home country, and his popularity is growing.

“From what I saw in Budapest last year, Leo is a crowd favorite,” O’Brien said. “He brings people out of their seats because of his genuine reactions when he does something well. He wears his emotions on his sleeve.”

Two journalists from Germany attended the Relays just to cover Neugebauer, including Angela Weiss, a freelancer who moved from Germany to Austin in August.

"I’m doing a story on his day-to-day life, his student life and his training,” she said. “That kind of story on him hasn’t been done in Germany, from what I know.”

Eike Schulz arrived in Austin two days before the decathlon to report on Neugebauer with an emphasis on his burgeoning rivalry with fellow German Niklas Kaul, who in 2019 became the youngest world decathlon champion in history at age 21.

“I’m doing a documentary,” he said. “A film team went to South Africa to film Niklas, and I came here to film Leo. Last year Leo was a shooting star in the sport, and five years ago it was Niklas. It’s an interesting rivalry that’s growing.”

The only thing bigger than the sight of the giant Neugebauer chasing history in the decathlon is his potential for superstardom.

“I’m just trying to be the best version of myself,” he said.

Times 10.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Longhorns decathlete Leo Neugebauer has star written all over him