The sun is shining dimly on the prestigious track in Eugene, Ore. The eight hurdlers sit on the blocks while the 12,812 in attendance are quiet. There’s no pressure on Andrew Riley. He’s seeded fourth after all; nobody expects him to win. The starting gun goes off.

Then Illinois men’s track and field interim head coach Mike Turk thinks something equivalent to “Uh-oh.” Someone in the 110-meter hurdles final at the 2010 NCAA Track and Field Outdoor Championships has false started.

For a moment, Turk thinks the culprit could be Riley, the 2010 Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year and Illinois school-record holder in the event.

A short time passed before Turk and everyone else discovered that it was South Carolina’s Johnny Dutch who jumped the gun, leading to his disqualification. Dutch’s error caused the race to restart, and that would bring new worries.

“The second time, I was a little concerned that (Riley) would sit in the blocks, with the guy next to him being (disqualified),” Turk said.

Starting off the blocks in the 110-meter hurdles is an art. Start too early and a disqualification is inevitable. Start too late and the competition already has a five-meter lead. To start just as the gun is heard takes focus. And on Saturday, Riley had focus.

Riley said he learned a lot about mental toughness from Tonja Buford-Bailey, the head coach of the Illinois women’s track and field team and this season’s sprinting/hurdling coach for the men. She instilled into him to “just react to the gun and power off the blocks.”

On Saturday, Riley said he did just that. But even after his start, Riley had 109 meters to go.

For most of the race, he held a slight lead to Ronnie Ash, who entered as the favorite, seeded first with a time of 13.32 seconds to Riley’s 13.55. Two others separated Ash and Riley.

The sophomore from Kingston, Jamaica, leaped over the final hurdle at nearly the same time as the junior from Raleigh, N.C. But once that happened, Buford-Bailey knew who would win.

“No one’s going to beat (Riley) from the last hurdle to the finish-line, so once I saw that he came off the last hurdle clean, I realized at that point it was his,” she said.

Riley’s time of 13.45 seconds was just good enough for a national title. It was Illinois’ 45th individual title in school history and first since 1996. No Illini had ever won the 110 hurdles, and Illinois’ last hurdling title came in 1954. People at Hayward Stadium noticed.

“It was amazing that around the stadium we started hearing cheers for Illinois and the Illini and ‘ILL-INI,’” Turk said. “We started hearing that outside the stadium and around here and there.”

Few thought Ash would lose, and even fewer thought Riley would win, but as Buford-Bailey said, there is never a sure thing in track and field. That’s why they run the race. But even after Saturday’s conclusion, it had barely sunk in for Riley.

“‘I can’t believe I did it,’” Riley recalled. “That’s the words I said, ‘I can’t believe I really beat a defending champion and won the hurdles race.’ It was unbelievable, I just couldn’t believe it.”

With few expecting him to win, Riley stayed loose even after Dutch’s unnerving false start.

“This hurdles race I was just having fun,” Riley said. “I was not under any pressure. I was just going out there to have fun. It was kind of the first big championship race I didn’t feel that nervous because I was not under any pressure, I just went out there and ran.”

It was a chain of events Riley will remember for a long time.

The shining sun. The runners on their blocks. No outside expectations or pressure. The sound of the gun. The false start. Another try. Victory.

Now a defending champion, Riley will be unable to recreate that scene again because there will be one major difference.

“There will be a lot of pressure now,” he laughed.