ITHACA, N.Y. -- Nathan Taylor was being pestered.
 
The Cornell men's track and field coach was getting calls constantly from a high school coach in Leopold, Ind. The high school coach would not give up. He had a senior who desperately wanted Cornell to be interested.
 
Finally, after being worn down by the persistent coach, Taylor agreed to let the kid come visit. Taylor wasn't expecting much.

Four years later, Nick Huber is a six-time Heps champion and on his way to Des Moines, Iowa, to compete for a national championship in the decathlon.
 
“Sometimes these things are more luck than skill in the recruiting process,” Taylor said.
 
* * *
Huber knew the odds were against him from the minute he came to campus.

With a high school best in the 300 hurdles of 38.9 seconds, he describes himself as being one of the weakest Cornell recruits ever. Cornell was the only school that recruited him – and the Big Red's efforts were only caused by the eager high school coach – and his personal expectations were not particularly high.
 
“I showed up just thinking that I was going to be one of the guys who works out all the time and works really hard but doesn't really get to enjoy the success of being a high-caliber athlete,” Huber said.
 
The event he is known for now, the decathlon, did not seem likely when he started in Ithaca. He was mostly a sprinter, hurdler and high jumper in high school, and even though he expressed a desire to perform the multi events, Huber had no experience in the pole vault, throws or long jump.
 
But before he could even try his luck at learning decathlon events, Huber had to prove he was worthy of taking on the road. At the onset of his original spring semester, Huber was not on the travel squad and was left home for every road meet. Finally, he convinced Taylor to allow him to travel separately to a meet in Syracuse.

Things looked bad when Huber showed up late to Syracuse and missed the event he had intended to perform, but he entered the 400-meter dash and impressed the coaches with his race. Maybe he was worth a spot on the travel squad after all.
 
Three weeks later, Huber was an Ivy League champion in the 400 and the 4x400 relay.
 
“It's a story that almost never happens anywhere in the country,” Taylor said.
 
“That's when coach realized that I was a little bit more talented than I had sort of let on,” Huber said.

One thing that was never lacking in Huber was his competitive nature. He loved to compete, Taylor said, and he was always willing to push himself to get better. After his triumph at the Indoor Heps his first year, Taylor told him that if he really wanted to try the decathlon, he needed to go home and learn how to pole vault.
 
Huber listened. By taking summer pole vaulting lessons and with vast improvements in his shot put, javelin and discus throws, his decathlon scores went from somewhere in the 4000-point range to numbers over 7000.
 
* * *

Huber may have had success in mastering the decathlon, but he can't emphasize how tough perfecting 10 different events is.
 
“A lot of people who are extremely strong and gifted in sprints … they come out and they try for two years to pole vault and they just can't put it together,” Huber said. “You're not excellent or national caliber at any one thing, but there are not many people who can pick up all the events and be proficient at each one.”
 
He had his share of frustrations. On any given day, the javelin might annoy him to no end. On another, his pole vaulting may just not be up to par. But one of the bright spots about the decathlon, he said, is that if you have a bad day on one discipline, you still have nine chances to do better. At any given time, any of the 10 events might be his favorite, and any of the 10 might be his nightmare.
 
And helping him along the way was a group of dedicated classmates in Vince Formica, Chris Ryan and Josh Cusick.
 
At many larger athletic schools, Huber said, training for a decathlon is solitary work because the school does not have multiple decathletes. But here at Cornell, Huber excelled thanks to spending time with friends who were going through the same training as he was.
 
“Without the support of them, I wouldn't have done as well,” Huber said. “We feed off each other.”
 
Only other decathletes can sympathize with the grueling, hectic days Huber can have. Even though he might be competing for minutes at a time, he has to keep his body warm for the entirety of a day because the events are so spread out. And at the 2012 Outdoor Heptagonal Championships at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Huber took part in the high jump and the 110 hurdles in addition to the decathlon.
 
Driving back and forth from the throwing area – about a mile away from the main field – to the rest of the events, Huber nearly missed his high jump. Instead of sitting in a van during traffic, he hopped out, jogged the final two blocks to the football field, borrowed a pair of Ryan's spikes after misplacing his own, and cleared the bar on his first attempt to tie for fifth place.
 
All of that in the middle of a five-event decathlon day, a decathlon that he would eventually win with a school-record 7,632 points.
 
“Your legs are literally up and ready to go for 12 hours straight,” Huber said. “That's one of the hardest parts about it.”
 
* * *

For an athlete who was barely recruited, Nick Huber has certainly made his mark at Cornell. Besides that decathlon school record, which he already held heading into that Outdoor Heps, Huber also holds the school record in the heptathlon (5,550) and pentathlon (3,707) and is part of the record-holding distance medley relay team.
 
As for individual championships, Huber claimed Ivy League titles in the 2010 outdoor 110-meter hurdle, the 2012 and 2011 heptathlon as well as the 2009 indoor 400-meter dash and 4x400 relay. And during his senior season, he has also served as a team co-captain.
 
The biggest accomplishment, though, might be just ahead. By virtue of his 7,632-point showing at the Outdoor Heps, Huber earned an automatic qualification to the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, beginning on Wednesday. Unlike the rest of the events, the decathlon athletes did not have to go through a regional round to qualify. The top 12 decathletes from the east and west are heading straight to the championships.
 
Huber's decathlon begins with the 100-meter dash on Wednesday at 1 p.m. eastern, and he finishes his college career with the 1500 on Thursday night at 8:50 eastern.
 
Considering the lack of fanfare that preceded his arrival at Cornell, did any of this success even seem possible four years ago?
 
“Not a chance,” Taylor said. “Not a chance.”
 
Sometimes the recruiting process is more luck than skill.
 
And sometimes, winning isn't everything. Huber knows what he wants out of this trip to the national championships. A title would be lovely. But since this is his last competition as a college athlete, Huber intends to savor the experience, victory or not.
 
“I'm going to try to go out with a bang, but I'm really just going to have fun,” he said. “I'm going to enjoy myself, and it's going to be the most fun I've ever had at a meet.”