Gatlin Bair Runs 10.18w In Boys 100m First Round; Nyckoles Harbor Goes 10.33
By David Woods for DyeStat
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Relays should sate anyone’s track and field appetite, with so many days and events and divisions. Yet this is football country, and another race would be welcomed: 100 meters, NFL All-Stars vs. Football Teens.
There is legalized gambling everywhere these days, so why not? Bet on the kids.
Gatlin Bair of Burley, Idaho, and Nyckoles Harbor of Washington, D.C., are two of the nation’s top football prospects from high school. NFL receiver Tyreek Hill thinks he’s pretty fast, and he is – he recently won a USA masters title by clocking 6.70 for 60 meters.
Bair and Harbor are both faster.
“This is what I grew up doing. What I grew up loving,” Bair said.
Two brothers are college decathletes, and his parents were track athletes at BYU.
Bair said this is his last track season. He is a junior but plans to graduate early, enroll at one of the many universities pursuing him and be ready for 2024 spring football.
Before that happens, a lot could happen on the track.
In Division II 100-meter prelims Friday at the Texas Relays, he was the top qualifier in 10.18. The wind of 2.1 mps was barely above the allowable, or he would have been on track to challenge the national junior class record of 10.09.
That’s the kind of time attracting attention of college recruiters, and, for that matter, NFL scouts.
Harbor, of Archbishop Carroll DC, was sixth in prelims in a wind-legal 10.33 (+1.1). He said he “shut it down” early and promised to be faster in Saturday’s final (set for 5:20 p.m. EDT).
These are big teenagers. Harbor is 6-5, 225, Bair 6-2, 195.
Bair said he had always played basketball, too, but abandoned that this winter to concentrate on running.
“I had some goals I wanted to beat and some things I wanted to do during the track season,” he said. “I was really focused on track. And it’s really paying off.”
Bair lowered his PB from a windy 10.46. He is perhaps better at 200 meters, having clocked 20.98 last July in a regional Junior Olympics.
Only high schooler faster than Bair this year is Issam Asinga of Montverde FL at 10.06w. Asinga set national records in the 60 and 200 at New Balance Nationals Indoor.
At the Texas Relays, Bair was surrounded by journalists asking not about track, but about football recruiting. Bair made an official visit to Texas on Wednesday and was at Nebraska last week. Those chasing him…
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