By Jared Fields, Managing Editor
The 6’8″ Frenchman stands in the middle of the dance floor in Oplin.
Slender with short blond hair, he stands amazed at what to him looks like a scene out of a Western movie.
For Camille Vandendriessche, the ACU campus is not the Texas he anticipated. The taste of Texas country in Oplin, the “old gentleman with a hat and boots,” was closer to what he expected.
Abilene and ACU were not his original plan. Vandendriessche of Belgium descent on both grandparents’ sides wound up in Texas by luck.
From the Paris suburb of Antony, 20 minutes from downtown, Camille came to the states to pursue track and field and academics.
His father, Laurent is an engineer on planes. Florence, his mother, is a middle school teacher. Camille’s only sibling, Hubert is in his first year of college in France.
“At first my mother was not very happy with me because I would be gone for a long time,” Camille said. “But she understood what I wanted to do; she is really supportive.
“I know it’s not easy for them, but for me, once I leave a place and get in another, I feel very comfortable.”
E-mail, phone and instant messaging make the distance easier to bear, he says.
Camille spent 42 hours a week in class during high school. France has no school on Wednesday so the decathlete spent his Wednesdays acquiring what makes him so well-rounded.
In the morning he swam, then took music lessons and singing. Camille speaks English, German and Spanish, along with his native French language.
In 2004, Camille planned to leave France for the United States to study journalism and pursue track and field. To do both in France would be too difficult.
“It is more difficult to get a degree, and you’re more under pressure,” Camille said. “If you don’t pass two classes you have to start college over.”
The University of North Carolina recruited Camille, who trained for three years with 110-meter hurdle world champion Ladji Doucoure, and that’s where he intended to go in January 2006. But 10 days before he planned to leave France for North Carolina, he learned he was not admitted to school.
He graduated from college in France where he could study journalism and also train as an athlete in January 2006, but UNC didn’t recognize much of his schooling, and he was unable to attend. Without a school to attend, Camille still moved to North Carolina.
The drop from a Division I to a Division II school meant nothing to his parents. What bothered them was when North Carolina rejected him and he had to find an apartment, coach, friends and a way to make a living.
Camille did have a job. Before leaving France he called L’Equipe, a daily sports newspaper in France, and asked for a job. He would be traveling to the meets anyway, and the paper could use some features on stars like Marion Jones and Justin Gaitlin who trained nearby in North Carolina. So Camille became a correspondent for the second most-read newspaper in France.
“I brought my laptop to the stadium, and I run and jump and throw, and then I wrote for the newspaper,” Camille said. “I don’t think I will do it again. I want to focus on track.”
In North Carolina, Camille became acquainted with the coaches and people. He worked out at Duke University, and spent time with people from UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina State and North Carolina Central. He competed in meets as an unattached athlete and won the decathlon at the Wake Forest meet with 7,124 points.
Because he couldn’t compete in Division I, Camille began researching and asking around about Division II schools with a good track program – Abilene Christian was his answer.
“I was looking for a school with a good track program and a journalism school and not too far from big cities with track and field traditions,” Camille said.
Abilene may not seem close to cities, but Baylor is home to many Olympic athletes and not too far away.
The journalism program also matched what he wanted in the academic side of college. He wants to learn to write in English to have the options of one day writing for an English or French newspaper.
After the track and field season ended in June, Camille returned to France where he was selected to join the national French team of athletes 23 years old or younger and competed against teams from Germany, Switzerland and Russia.
When Camille came to ACU in August, he was ready to finally begin his collegiate career.
Even though he lived in the states during the spring in North Carolina, Camille had to adapt to another different culture in Abilene.
“I’ve never seen anybody angry here. They respect each other,” Camille said. “[People] are happy to see me, and I’m the only French student on campus, so they are wondering what it is like in France.”
His first impression of Chapel was good, but when he found out attendance was mandatory, he tried to get exemptions.
“I had a good feeling about Chapel when I first went, but when I heard I had to go to Chapel everyday before coming, I was like…” his eyes enlarged as he looked like the task was too much to ask.
Camille grew up Catholic, going to what he said was a “boring church.” His first church in Abilene, other than a Catholic one, was the Morning Star Church.
“Here the first church I went to was free popcorn and drinks,” Camille said.
He recalled the big screens above the stage and the people on stage singing and dancing, something else he had never seen before.
Aside from the social change, the physical aspect of training with a national contending track program has been a challenge to Camille.
In France, he lifted weights just twice a week. Even then it was only two or three exercises. Lifting weights four times a week, in many variations, is new to him.
“I am doing things here that I have never done before.”
Besides training in a new way, Camille has four coaches he works with training to be a decathlete. For the pole vault, he trains with pole vaulting coach Cory Aguilar. Sprints and hurdles are coached by Abe Brown, and Jerrod Cook coaches throwing events. His fourth coach is head coach Don Hood.
“It’s helping a lot because it’s a lot harder,” Camille said of his training. “In North Carolina I was by myself and I did my own plan, and it was almost the same plan as I did in France.”
With the track and field season not far away, Camille and the coaches are optimistic about his potential. Hood said he sees Camille develop more strength each week.
“A lot of the foreign athletes want to come here so badly that they pursue it,” said head track coach Don D. Hood of Camille’s interest in the program. “His attitude coming over was just, ‘I’m happy to be here.'”
Camille said his goal is to win the Division II national championship, and Hood doesn’t think it’s too unrealistic.
“After watching him compete, I am convinced,” Hood said. “He’s a definite threat to win nationals. I think he’s going to be the favorite going in, him and Campy.”
Campy Pounds is the Wildcats other decathlete, who has provisionally qualified for the indoor national meet in the long jump with a distance of 23-5.50.
“He’s a beast,” Pounds said.
But Camille’s not the only one. Last weekend at the Texas Tech Open, Pounds scored just three points behind Camille in the heptathlon, an event Division II doesn’t hold a championship for at the indoor meet.
“Campy will be my most challenging opponent for the decathlete title,” Camille said. “I’m very glad to have him as a training partner.”
Just a few weeks into the indoor season, no limits exist for the Frenchman.
Coach Hood agrees.
“After watching him compete, I am convinced,” Hood said.
