Ashton Eaton leads camp participants in warmup exercises Saturday during Eaton’s first track camp at his alma mater La Pine High School.

Ashton Eaton has competed on the biggest of stages — the 2012 London Olympic Games, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the World Championship in Moscow, Beijing, Istanbul, Sopot and Portland — during a career that saw him seven times be named the best decathlete in the world.

But on Saturday and Sunday, Eaton was back in La Pine where his track and field career began, holding the first Ashton Eaton Track Camp, a two-day youth camp at La Pine High School.

“The kids were enthusiastic, I just wanted them to have fun and try hard,” said Eaton. “Really, what this was about was exposing them to track and field in a fun way.”

Prior to reaching the absolute pinnacle of track and field as an Olympic and world champion decathlete, winning seven gold medals on the world stage, Eaton starred on the University of Oregon track and field team, where he won three consecutive NCAA titles in the decathlon.

Before stepping foot at Mountain View High, where the track on campus is named after him, Eaton was back on the track at La Pine High School, where he had competed in his first organized track and field competition and where he fell in love with track while running through the woods of La Pine.

“It is special to come back here all these years later and to see the generation that is coming and remember being part of that,” Eaton said. “I remember someone coming and doing a track camp for me, and just being like ‘wow, I’m so into this.’”

Saturday morning for 90 minutes, about 30 6- to 11-year-olds (Sunday will be for the 12- to 18-year-olds) were rotated through a series of track and field drills — high jump, long jump, hurdles, javelin and sprints before ending with a 5×200-meter relay — that introduced the children to the sport that propelled Eaton to became the best in the world.

Luke McFadyen, a 10-year-old from Bend, was amazed by the experience, particularly being able to get some pointers from the two-time Olympic gold medalist. McFadyen also learned some valuable lessons on the first day of the camp.

“I learned that you can always try and do better,” McFadyen said. “Even though you are good, you can always get better.”

A stretch of Highway 97 just a few blocks away from the high school is named after Eaton. The town of La Pine shows a lot of pride knowing that Eaton started his rise to the best decathlete in the world there. Local residents were thrilled to have him host his first track camp in their hometown.

“How many communities can say that a two-time gold medalist came from your town?” said Kevin McDaniel, who is the PA announcer for La Pine track meets, and does the play-by-play voice for La Pine football on 107.3 KNCP FM. “In a town like this, for someone to come in and say, ‘You can be whatever you want,’ I just think that is huge. You don’t know if the next Ashton Eaton might be in this camp.”

After all the event rotations and the final runner crossed the finish line in the camp-wide relay race, the campers gathered around Eaton, who brought the two gold medals won at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, took them out of their wooded cases and began passing them around for the campers to hold.

“Just like you guys, I started out in La Pine and in Central Oregon coming to track camps just like this,” Eaton told campers who admired the medals. “I want to say thank you for your hard work, and allowing us to have fun being here with you guys.”