Can't
get to the game? Don't worry, we've got ya covered.
Haynes takes a chance to win gold medal
3/19/2008
By CONOR NICHOLL
Hays Daily News
The trainers laid out the possible scenarios for Fort Hays State University junior sprinter Bryan Haynes last weekend at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field National Championships in Mankato, Minn.
Haynes, who had just finished last in the 60 meter prelims, was bothered by his troublesome hamstrings -- hamstrings that were on the verge of snapping. His status for the 200 meters was uncertain.
The trainers told Haynes they had seen three other athletes with similar hamstrings. Each one competed and tore the muscle.
"I had some pretty nice knots in there, had some the size of little golf balls," Haynes said. "(They said) you run, you tear it and you are out for a couple more weeks. Or run it and you are extremely sore and you probably might tear it if you make the finals."
Haynes decided to risk it.
"I was going to go until I couldn't walk," he said. "It's nationals. Whatever happens, happens. Just do it."
Haynes stayed healthy and eventually captured a national title in the 200 meters. The junior, who entered the finals as the sixth seed and had to compete in the slow heat, won the race in 21.78 seconds. He captured the title by .02 seconds over Abilene Christian's Desmond Jackson.
His victory was the fourth individual indoor national title in Tiger history and marked the first time a male athlete won a track event. Casey Seyfert won the indoor national championship in shot put twice and Maisha Prewitt collected a title in the 60-meter hurdles.
Haynes set his personal record in the 200 meters by nearly a tenth of a second and dropped his time from prelims by .13 seconds, a significant margin in the sprints and a split that is rarely seen in one meet.
"I was surprised he won it," Tiger coach Dennis Weber said. "I was hoping he could place sixth, seventh or eighth and bring home an All-American."
Instead, Haynes, one of Div. II's best kickoff returners for the Tiger football team, added to an impressive resume that includes four individual high school state championships, and capped a journey through three states and two schools.
Haynes, a native of Peoria, Ariz., won the Arizona state title three straight years in the 100 meters and once in the 200. At 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, Haynes was recruited by Div. I-AA University of Massachusetts by Mark Whipple, the Minuteman head football coach, who traveled to Arizona for vacation.
Whipple wanted Haynes to run track and play football, a sport Haynes had started only his senior year. At first, Haynes wanted to run track only, but Whipple convinced him to do both.
"I can't teach speed, I can teach you how to catch a ball," Haynes recalls Whipple saying.
However, when Haynes signed to play for UMass, Whipple (now the Philadelphia Eagles' offensive assistant coach), took a job as the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks coach. Haynes stayed with the Minutemen, but tore his ACL his first season. The track program also wasn't what Haynes wanted.
"There weren't as competitive as they were (at Fort Hays)," he said. "They were more of a distance team. They wanted me to gain weight, but I was a speed guy."
He spent three years in Amherst before he decided to transfer to Fort Hays after he talked with a family friend who played for the Tigers.
Kevin Verdugo, the Tiger football coach, allowed Haynes (on a football scholarship) to compete in both sports on one condition.
"If you can win, I will let you run," Verdugo told Haynes. "But if you can't win, then it is going to be a waste of time."
After Haynes finished second in the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association and 19th in the country in kickoff return average for the football squad last fall, Haynes joined the track team and fulfilled Verdugo's goal.
He picked up several high finishes, including two runner-ups in the 60 and 200 meters at the MIAA Indoor Championships. However, the week before conference and three weeks before nationals, Haynes joined the football team for spring workouts.
In the last two weeks before nationals, Haynes only worked on starts. He didn't have what Weber called "a full-fledged track practice" for three weeks and Haynes' chronic hamstrings also gave him problems.
"I could tell by his running mechanics, the way he runs, he puts a lot more stress on his hamstring," Weber said. "He relies on his strength to run (like a football player) instead of getting up and running real tall."
Haynes, who ranked eighth in the country in the 200 meters entering nationals, needed a deep tissue massage/active release technique to work out the kinks in his hamstring.
"My thumbs are about shot," Weber said with a smile. "Trying to get in there and loosen up that one tight muscle in there. It takes time to break up scar tissue."
"I was hoping to get him through the races without him getting hurt," Weber added.
Haynes finished last out of 15 athletes in the 60-meter prelims and said he ran "horrible." To compete in the 200 meters, he decided he had to see the trainers, who stemmed, iced and heated the muscle. The trainers told Haynes he was "running a fine line" and the hamstring could pop at any moment.
Haynes qualified in the prelims without any tears.
"I just felt relief, I was in pain, but I was relieved that I didn't pull anything or hear anything snap," he said.
Because of his prelim time, Haynes started in Lane 6 of the "slow" heat. Weber told Haynes to start faster than he did in prelims and at conference, but Haynes' hamstring was a little tight.
"I was a little apprehensive coming out of the blocks," Haynes said.
After 30 meters, St. Augustine's Dennis Boone, running in Lane 5, passed Haynes.
"I thought, oh my gosh, he is in trouble," Weber said.
At 120 meters, though, Haynes, helped by adrenaline, kicked it in on the backstretch. He made up the deficit in the last 50 meters.
"I went to my strength and just powered through it," he said. "I felt the buzz in the air... and had some fresh legs."
He won the heat and then watched his main competitors, Emporia State's Kenton Lonberger and St. Augustine's Ramon Gittens, start fast, but fall short in the finals.
Weber ran over to a shocked Haynes and gave him a hug when the official results were announced. Since then, Haynes has heard from family, friends, his high school track coach, Tiger football coaches and received Facebook messages on his wall.
"It was pretty exciting," Haynes said.
Now back in Hays, Haynes took a few days off before he rejoins the football team. He'll rest his sore hamstrings -- hamstrings that held together and produced an unlikely national title.
Sports Reporter Conor Nicholl can be reached at (785) 628-1081 Ext. 127 or at
cnicholl@dailynews.net.
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| BB | 5/11 | Central Missouri | L 4-2 |
| BB | 5/10 | Missouri Western | W 4-3 |
| BB | 5/09 | Emporia State | L 6-5 |
| BB | 5/04 | Pittsburg State | W 17-5 |
| BB | 5/04 | Pittsburg State | L 4-3 |
| BB | 5/03 | Pittsburg State | L 15-7 |
| BB | 5/03 | Pittsburg State | L 5-4 |
| SB | 5/02 | Central Missouri | L 3-1 |
| SB | 5/02 | Missouri Western | W 3-2 |
| SB | 5/01 | Pittsburg State | W 6-0 |
