Casey Etheridge wasn’t going to go back out for track his junior year after giving it a go as a sophomore and go play baseball.

He had gone as far as ordering a baseball hat and was prepared to trade in his track cleats for baseball spikes.

Then Dave Moore was named as the Tigers head track coach. And Etheridge’s plans changed.

“After sophomore year, I told myself, ‘I don’t think track’s for me. It’s time to go back to baseball,’ because I did travel ball from third to the eighth grade,” Etheridge said. “My mind was set on going out for baseball. I even ordered a baseball hat and went to a baseball meeting.”

But he found coach Moore to be a persuasive man.

“Every day by Tiger Eyes (school door) I’d walk by Coach Moore’s bus. And every day, he’d asked me, ‘Etheridge, are you going to go out for track?’ I’d always be, ‘Ah coach, I don’t know,’” Etheridge said with a laugh.

“Then you quickly come to realize when you respect someone as much as coach Moore, it’s very hard to say no to him. Then I was like, ‘I’ll do track. I’ll stick with it.’ I was very grateful I stuck with it. I was able to have the experience of going to state last year and then even showing more growth thus year. In the process, I’ve gotten a lot faster, too.”

Etheridge qualified for state as a junior and made fast tracks back to Charleston this spring in both hurdles events and the 4x400 relay.

He was the BCR Honor Roll leader in the 110 hurdles (15.15), the 300 hurdles (39.76) and the 100 meters (10.58) and ran on the Tigers’ top 4x400 (3:29.55). All were personal bests for Etheridge.

He helped lead the Tigers to a second-place finish in the Three Rivers Conference with wins in both hurdles and a third in the 100 along with a blue-ribbon effort in the 4x400.

For all of his accomplishments, Etheridge is the 2026 BCR Male Track & Field Athlete Of The Year.

Moore remembers his daily encounters with Etheridge those days before his junior track season.

“I told him, ‘You know who’s coaching track.’ He said, yeah.” I said, ‘well you need to come out for track.’ It finally just wore off on him and he said he was coming out," Moore said.

“I don’t know what the magic is, but I don’t think I could ever say no to him,” Etheridge said.

The 2A Galesburg Sectional proved to be a great challenge, but Etheridge met it head on, qualifying for state on time in the 110 hurdles, the 300 hurdles and in the 4x400 relay with Ayden Agushi, Tyler VandeVenter and Gavin Lanham.

“Sectionals was really exciting because I was able to qualify in every event I knew I could,” Etheridge said. “Our 4x1 was really close. Then the 110s, the 300s and even our 4x400, I was able to run with my friends and go to state with them. The was a great experience.”

At state, Etheridge had the closest of close calls, coming within 300ths of a second in medaling in the 300 hurdles. 300ths of second! Pontiac’s Cesar Gutierez clocked a 39.79, Etheridge at 39.82

“I kind of burned out a little bit and he was just able to get a step on me and a good lean,” Etheridge said.

“He was ahead of the kid until the last two steps,“ Moore said. ”That was the difference between going on to Saturday and leaving Friday.”

The close call was hard for Etheridge to register.

“On the way home, I’d start the stop watch on my phone and stop it and the quickest I could get was 900ths of a second. So that shows you it’s literally like that,” he said. putting his thumb and finger nearly together. “That was a little tougher to swallow at first because after the last heat they announced who made it to the finals and they say the kid’s name who barely beat me last.

“(State) was a good experience, It wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. My 110s, I knew they were inconsistent and I didn’t know what I’d do with them. I didn’t do my best. I think I placed a little better than I was ranked. My 300s was a little of a heartbreaker because I was 300ths of a second away from the finals.

“I was at least happy my last race of my high school career I could run it with my friends in the 4x400 and we could go out with a good PR.”

Moore said Etheridge was a fast learner.

“You know he never ran the highs until his junior year and he qualified for state,” he said. “And then senior year, he brought his times way down. 15.15 was his fastest. If he would run that down at state he would have placed fifth or sixth.

“It was fun. He had two years where he qualified for state. Probably should have made the finals in the 300s. Wasn’t his day.”

Etheridge will be doing his next running for the University of Wisconsin-Platteville football team this fall. He set the Bureau County all-time rushing record last season.