QuickTake:
Wayne Martin of Eugene and his family have plenty to celebrate this weekend at Hayward Field when two of the three Hoey brothers race in the same event.
Wayne Martin of Eugene and the rest of his family, including his three siblings and six children, were hoping to get to watch three of Martin’s grandsons — Josh, Jaxson and Jonah — competing among the nation’s best in the same event, the 800 meters.
That dream was dashed — by only 0.01 seconds.
“It’s kind of inconceivable,” said Josh Hoey, the 800-meter runner with the second-best time in American history (1:42.01) coming into the 2025 USA Outdoor Track and Field and Para National Championships, which start Thursday, July 31, and run through Aug. 3 at Hayward Field in Eugene.
Hoey, 25, who is also the 2025 world indoor 800-meter champion, was talking over the phone from his family’s Airbnb in Eugene about his older brother, Jaxson, missing out on qualifying for the 800’s opening heats by that fraction of a second.
But the youngest brother, Jonah Hoey, 23, also runs the 800 and did qualify. Jonah will line up along with Josh in the third of four heats at 3:07 p.m. Thursday in the first-round heats.
“I’m really excited,” said Jonah, who ran collegiately at Boston University. “It feels like it’s been a long time coming, making this meet.”
Jaxson Hoey, 27, the oldest of the three brothers, has a personal best time of 1:46.79 in the 800, just behind the last of the 32 runners to qualify, Shane Streich’s 1:46.78.
So close.
So much for the Hayward Field crowd getting to see America’s 800 version of Norway’s Ingebrigtsen brothers — Jakob, Henrik and Filip — who are all European champions in the 1,500.
But Martin, 81, a retired minister and dedicated advocate for the homeless since moving from his hometown of Monterey, California, to Eugene in 2012, isn’t complaining too much.
“It’s wonderful,” he said during a phone interview. “I just love my daughter’s way of bringing up kids.”
His daughter is Leslee Hoey — mother of Jaxson, Josh and Jonah. She was a standout distance runner herself at Penn State from 1987 to 1992.
Leslee and husband, Fran Hoey, are here this week to watch their sons — who all ran for Bishop Shanahan High in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where they live still — while Jaxson decided to stay back east and run the Brooklyn Mile road race Aug. 3 in New York.
The couple purchased 16 seats for this week’s national championships at Hayward for those family members who are hoping to see both Josh and Jonah in Sunday’s final.
“I try not to have any expectations,” Martin said, “but I think Josh is going to win (Sunday) and make it look easy. He’s running better than anybody in America right now.”
Indeed, Josh Hoey is on fire, coming off that breathtaking personal best of 1:42.01 set July 11 at a meet in Monaco. That’s not only the second best 800 time in U.S. history, it’s 11th best in world history, just behind former UO great Joaquim Cruz, who ran 1:41.77 on Aug. 26, 1984, a month after winning the gold medal for Brazil at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
Josh Hoey, who planned on running for the UO out of high school in 2018 but instead signed with Adidas and turned pro, finished fourth in the 800 meters at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, running a then-personal best of 1:44.12, just missing a trip to Paris.
This time, he plans on making it to Tokyo for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, Sept. 13-21. The top three athletes in each event advance.
The only USATF entrant with a better 800 time is American record-holder Bryce Hoppel, who ran 1:41.67 in finishing fourth at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris last summer.
Josh Hoey wouldn’t mind if Jonah, who has the 10th best entry time (1:44.98), joins him in Tokyo, although that’s a more iffy proposition.
But both certainly have a shot at being in Sunday’s final after Friday’s semifinals.
“Two Hoeys on Sunday would be a huge success,” Josh Hoey said.
