Introducing Dave Burton, your new M45 decathlon record-holder

Dave is CTO of this site.

Dave is CTO of this site. Raise money for masters?

Dave Burton isn’t new to the dec, it turns out. After posting news of how he broke Rex Harvey’s 24-year-old American record, I sought more details. He graciously responded. He ran at CSU Northridge as a freshman and sophomore and then CSU Chico as a junior, and then trained at the University of Texas under legendary coach Dan Pfaff for a year “before injury took me out,” he says. His decathlon PR is 7102 at the 1993 Division II nationals, which he won as a senior. He was a three time All-American (third as frosh, sixth as a junior “when I failed badly at the vault.”) He’s the chief technical officer for the crowd-funding site FanAngel. “Prior to FanAngel, I was a director at IntercontinentalExchange — the company that bought the New York Stock Exchange. Was with them since early, so that was a fun ride.”

Here are his pre-1995 PRs:

100: 10.9
LJ: 25-0 (in a hurricane)
SP: 46-4
HJ: 6-6.75
400: 50.20 (ran 48 splits, but seldom ran 400 open)
110H: 14.55 (was CSU Chico school record at the time).
Discus: 142-0
PV: 17-3 (after college, I focused for a year on vault only in 1994)
Javelin: 196-5 (actually set D2 Dec record, which was promptly broken the next year)
1500: 4:52

His post-2012 PRs (when he resumed competition):

100: 11.91
LJ: 20-10
SP: 41-1
HJ: 6-0.5
400: 53.96
110H: 15.66
Discus: 119
PV: 14-7
Javelin: 160-0
1500: 5:09

More of our quickie Q&A:

Masterstrack.com: Are you the force behind the funding website?

Dave Burton: Yes, that’s us. We are re-launching soon.  We have postponed all college pledging and have partnered with several NFL players and teams to re-invent as a crowdfunding-for-performance, focusing first on charities and soon on Olympic Sports to fund athlete training (obviously, I’m excited about that). 

Where do you coach?

Cuesta Community College. 

What are your competition plans for 2016? Perth worlds? Michigan nationals?

I don’t know.  I’m planning to do a decathlon at CSU Chico in March.  And I’m definitely considering Perth. I haven’t gone to a worlds yet, so would very much like to do that one.

Print Friendly

October 8, 2015

2 Responses

  1. Brian Coushay - October 20, 2015

    Great job David! You are a Stud! Good luck with you dec in March.

  2. Bradshaw - October 28, 2016

    Dave is a stud and a great guy

Leave a Reply