Senior of the Year: Byron Grevious

By ISABEL EVANS ‘27

The crowd cheers as the first-place runner crosses the finish line and breaks the green tape at the 2023 Nike Outdoor Nationals. He has just finished a 5000-meter race, setting an Exeter school record and winning one of the most important national track competitions. This runner is senior Byron Grevious, a star Exonian athlete, Wentworth resident and irreplaceable member of the Exeter community.

Grevious originally applied to Exeter in hopes of change and diversity. “I grew up in a pretty predominantly white area,” he explained. “I wanted to come to Exeter to surround myself with all kinds of people and experience Exeter learning. I feel like education is so much more than just in the classroom, and I wanted to push that area of my life. I think that Exeter was a perfect outlet for that, as well as getting ready for college and learning how to be independent.” 

What Grevious found at Exeter was exactly what he was looking for: challenging, but fun. “It’s been really hard, but learning time management and all of that has been cool, and I’ve met awesome people,” he said.

Since prep year, Grevious has represented Big Red on the track. Prior to coming to the Academy, he played soccer in his hometown of Southport, CT, but when he moved to campus, he wanted to try something new. Grevious’s parents and grandfather were all accomplished runners and suggested that he try his hand at the sport. On his eighth-grade tour of Exeter, he met the team and immediately knew that he wanted to join the next year. “Falling in love with the community of the sport has kept me in the sport for these four years. I will be pursuing it in college as well and I’m really excited for that.”

Through track, Grevious was able to make lifelong friendships. “I feel like my closest friends are on the cross country and track team,” he shared. “We go through tough workouts and races, and always go to the dining hall together. How close we are as a group of friends and a team is what’s really special.”

Grevious and his friends enjoy spending time with each other on and off the track. When not practicing, they often play FIFA, spikeball, and four pong. Senior Jonny Chen reminisced about his favorite memory with Grevious, as well as seniors Rex Bedwick and Eamin Ahmed. “I would say our favorite memory is when we went to Vermont for preseason as a cross country team,” said Chen. “We were up in the woods with no distractions when we were hanging out. We were just running and cooking food, and it was a very easygoing environment. We had a lot of fun.” 

Senior Annika Finelli shared her first impression of Byron, expressing the same emotions that many of his other friends felt when they met him. “I vividly remember one of our first indoor track practices my prep year,” she recalled. “Some of the upperclassmen were doing time trials, and after the first few groups had gone, I saw this boy around my height line up next to these massive seniors, so my friends and I just looked at each other, pulled out the timers on our phones, and knew that this kid was about to run fast. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but after watching him run what I remember to be a 4:50 mile, I just knew there were big things ahead of him. I simply saw him as this incredibly talented athlete whose name I might recognize on TV many years in the future. Once Covid restrictions were lifted and the team became closer, I got the chance to finally talk to him, and he truly was one of the most genuine and kind people I have spoken to on campus.”

Many of Grevious’s friends were similarly impressed by Grevious’s track abilities but grew to recognize his funny, easygoing, and kind personality as they became closer friends. “Kevin [Treehan] and I were barely holding onto the group on the warmup and Byron was all the way up there the whole workout. So I immediately could tell he was a fast runner,” said Bedwick “He was a happy kid, he was very smiley.” 

“He also wore these short shorts when he ran. They’re like chicken legs and they had these crazy designs on them and he still claims to this day he started the trend of wearing short shorts,” Ahmed shared with a laugh.

Outside of track, Byron participates in many extracurricular activities. He expressed his love for music, which he is able to share that passion through clubs: “Another big passion I have is WPEA and radio, [which] has also been an outlet to explore music. [My love for] listening to music—nineties, R&B, and rap—started with my parents. And I’ve had a radio show with my friend Malcolm for two years.” 

Apart from WPEA being an outlet for him to explore and discover music, Grevious also appreciated the leadership role he was able to take in this club. “Getting the leadership opportunity to run the station, being a part of the board, and figuring out how that works has been really cool. I’m also on the attendance committee, which puts some responsibility on myself to talk to peers about any struggles they have with attendance and trying to help problem-solve.” 

Byron cherishes the relationships he has formed at Exeter and strives to positively impact his community. “A few months ago, we went to an antique store called the Water Street Marketplace in Exeter,” recalled Finneli, “and I learned a lot about Byron in just this one trip. We were in there for a little over an hour and the whole time, he pointed out things that different people in his life might like, while eventually buying one of the posters for his dad. It was evident how much he cares about the relationships he has formed, and how much he thinks about those around him. I saw this again while we were looking at [...] license plates. He was searching for one from Colorado, because he had recently taken a trip out there with some of his friends, and ended up pulling out pictures from the trip on his phone. While it was primarily running-based, he didn’t talk about the workouts they did or the paces they hit, but rather, he showed me photos of the mountains they ran up, the waterfall they went to, the stars they hiked to see, and the memories they made together.” 

Finelli appreciates his genuine and caring personality. “I enjoy these moments with Byron where I get to see him talk about the relationships and memories that make him happy,” she continued, “because as an athlete at a school like Phillips Exeter, it can be hard sometimes to take a step back and enjoy the little things, but he does a really good job at appreciating everything around him.” As Finelli expressed, he takes the time to appreciate the people around him, which is one of the things his friends admire about him.

Cross Country and Track and Field Coach Brandon Newbould said, “I have to say that my favorite memory of Byron might be the time this early winter when we did a trail run through a flooded area. Byron was using his speed to go ahead and find trees or detours to avoid flooded sections of trail.” Byron’s use of his running skills to care for the team shows his kind and thoughtful personality.

Grevious is also always willing to have fun. “He is deeply driven, with profound intrinsic motivation to excel, but loves to have fun,” Newbould continued. On that same running trip, there came a point where they could not avoid the flooded areas any longer. “We reached a point where there was no choice but to run through a stream. Byron thought it was shallow and tried to sprint through it, but it was so deep he lost his balance and fell in face-first, full immersion. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.” 

Many of Grevious’s friends appreciate his deep humility despite his impressive accomplishments. “He’s a national champion in running, but I admire how he’s able to be the same person who will scream when he runs through thorns,” said Chen. “He doesn’t let his success hinder who he is as a person.” 

“Even though he is a national champion, a Nike Elite athlete, a Stanford commit, and one of the best high school runners in the country, you wouldn’t know any of this if you were to have a conversation with him,” Finelli agreed. “Not once have I witnessed him seek praise or brag about his stats. He truly runs for himself, not the popularity. That is what makes him so respectable, the fact that he is able to enjoy the sport for what it is, and not look for validation in winning, but rather through achieving his own goals.” 

Aside from running, Grevious has persevered at Exeter academically. Though he has faced obstacles in the past, Grevious found support in the Academy’s faculty and persevered to success. “I was struggling with chemistry in my lower year,” Grevious shared. “I struggled the first term, and my interim advisor, Mr. McLaughlin stepped in and helped me.” 

Initially, this faculty support shocked Grevious in comparison to what he had expected of Exeter. “I thought everyone was going to be competitive: fighting for grades, for opportunities to meet with teachers, for extra points. Then, when I got here, I realized that everyone was available and wanted to lend a helping hand. Like my dormmates coming and checking on me, seeing if I needed help with any subjects and if I was struggling. Seeing the same sort of character traits in both the students and faculty was something that I didn’t think I would get from a New England preparatory school.”

Byron has explored many subjects, and one has emerged as his favorite: biology. “I’ve taken five biology electives and I’m going to take a sixth one in the spring. I’m doing human physiology now and hopefully, I’ll pursue a sort of sports medicine in college and maybe in graduate school. I think the environmental sciences specifically are something that I’m glad I took advantage of, because the field trips that we do to local farms, understanding where our food comes from and the cycle of how the food we eat arrives on our plate, have been interesting.”

The most significant lesson Byron has learned at his time here is “that development isn’t linear, whether that’s in the classroom or athletically. A lot of my time is spent thinking about that, to not get bogged down by whether you’re seeing the exponential growth that you want and just putting in the work, time and time again. Just being in it for the long run.”

“I think that my goals of getting good grades and getting into college changed dramatically when I first stepped on campus and found out that not everyone is so competitive with grades,” said Grevious, commenting on how he has changed since he arrived at Exeter. “I think [my focus] changed to trying to take advantage of all the opportunities that we have on campus. And looking back, I think that I’ve achieved the goals that I set for myself when I first got here.” Grevious truly appreciates the many opportunities that he found on campus to expand his academic and athletic life.

When asked to describe his Exeter experience in one word, after some thought, Grevious answered, “rewarding.” Through his struggles and successes, he persevered and became a better person because of it.

As Grevious heads off to Stanford this coming year, he hopes to “inspire and be an influence to other people if I can, whether that’s being a captain on the cross country team and having lowerclassmen look up to me for running, or also just as a person. I hope that I can look back and say that I did a good job with being a leader.”

When Grevious’s friends were asked to describe Byron in one word, they suggested “driven,” “multi-faceted,” and “hilarious,” but eventually agreed that it was an impossible task, because he was a person who couldn’t be confined to just one word. Grevious has been cherished by friends, teachers, and coaches as an essential part of the Exeter community, and as they part for college and beyond, they all wished him the best in the future. 

“It has been such an honor to be able to watch you grow and mature as an athlete and a person,” Finelli said. “I am so proud of all that you have achieved, and I can’t wait to watch you accomplish more of your goals. We are all rooting for you!”

As he now crosses the finish line of his time at Exeter, reporters requesting interviews, spectators cheering, Grevious can finally look back to appreciate all of the hard work he has dedicated to arrive here, embrace the people at school and home who have supported him throughout his journey, and imagine just how much farther he will go.