Bryan Clay's Olympic gold medal in today's decathlon gave Azusa Pacific University, his alma mater, its first track and field gold.

Azusa Pacific, located in southern California, has one of the top NAIA track and field programs. Clay, a Castle High School graduate, competed for the Cougars from 1999 to 2002. While there, he had an NAIA-record 23 All-America honors and led the Cougars to a sweep of the 2002 NAIA indoor and outdoor track and field team titles.

The school has 14 NAIA outdoor titles, six indoor titles and swept this year's indoor and outdoor national championships. There have been Olympic medalists from Azusa Pacific, but never a gold.

In Beijing today, Clay won the decathlon with 8,791 points.

"This is the pinnacle," Azusa Pacific coach Kevin Reid said in an APU story. "For Bryan this is just great. It was a dominating performance."