Cade Flatt Will Makes His Ole Miss Debut At Millrose Games; Five-Time U.S. Champ Clayton Murphy Looks To Accelerate His Season
Story by Cole Pressler for DyeStat
In an Ole Miss freshman dorm room, there’s one sentence written on a whiteboard.
“Cade Flatt is a super talent with zero work ethic, and he’ll crumble under a proper college program.”
Flatt reads that sentence to himself every morning.
He internalizes it as he gears up for his collegiate debut on Saturday at the biggest indoor track meet in the world: the Millrose Games.
“A lot of people in track and field are just boring,” Flatt said. “No one wants to hear ‘em talk, no one wants to hear what they have to say. No one cares if they win or lose. Track and field needs a guy like me.”
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Also pinned to Flatt’s bedroom wall is a list of names — 800-meter runners he wants to “take care of” this year. A list that “no one wants to be on.”
He wouldn’t say whether Clayton Murphy is on that list.
The two-time Olympian Murphy will face the 19-year-old head-to-head for the first time this weekend at Millrose.
“They’re not cut from the same mold,” Murphy said, of Flatt and the other “young guys” rising up on the middle distance scene.
At 27, Murphy is already one of the most accomplished American 800m runners ever — Olympic bronze medalist, Pan American Games champion and a six-time U.S. champion.
Flatt doesn’t even know how old Murphy is.
“He’s really mature for whatever age he is,” Flatt said. “He’s one to look up to, one to get information from.”
Different Approaches
Murphy hails from the cornfields of New Paris, Ohio. Flatt grew up at the end of a rolling road in the middle of the woods in Benton, Kentucky.
But while Murphy logged miles in soccer and cross country, Flatt was raised on Sunday church, basketball and the Rocky movies on repeat.
Murphy showed pigs from his family farm on the weekend. He collected coins.
Flatt did pushups and situps alone in his room after watching Rocky II. (It has the best training montage of any movie, he said.)
“I was never just content with being some guy,” Flatt said. “I was never content with being outworked.”
Before enrolling at Ole Miss in the fall, Flatt would never run more than six miles a week.
All he had was speed. It’s the only drug Flatt needs. It empowers him to be the most unapologetic 19-year-old in America. He’ll slam the finishing…
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