Reggie Wyatt, La Sierra (Riverside, Calif.)
Photo by Kirby Lee
Reggie Wyatt, the national record holder in the 300-meter hurdles, loves a challenge.
His father, Reggie Wyatt Sr., told him as a youngster, “You can’t cheat yourself” when it comes to hard work. “I wanted to be the best and someone else might be working (harder),” he understood. That’s why he was running up hills, then mountains to work out as an elementary school athlete.
The recent graduate of La Sierra (Riverside, Calif.) admits there were days he would rather not have run up a mountain. However, he quickly adds, “I liked that better than running on a track. It was fun. At the same time, I was building up my legs and endurance. It helped me a lot to be a hard worker and carried on to high school.”
That tireless work ethic – plus a long-time organic diet - paid huge dividends earlier this spring when Wyatt ran the 300-meter hurdles in a blazing, national-record 35.02 seconds during the California state meet preliminaries and later notched the championship in a somewhat slower 36.71, just making sure he got the “W.”
“I was in shock for awhile,” he admitted. “Since my freshman year I thought it would be great to own the all-time national record. It’s what I’d been working for.”
In addition, Wyatt won the 400-meter dash in 46.13 seconds – still the third-fastest time in the nation this year – and scored 20 points to enable La Sierra to tie three other teams for the state championship.
Reggie Sr. told MaxPreps, “That’s the biggest one he always wanted. He owns the rest (freshman, sophomore and junior national records in the 300). I don’t think we’ve seen anyone else who dominated all four levels. He always has amazed me. To top it off, he’s so humble.”
La Sierra assistant coach Will Jacobsmeyer recalled, “After he set the national record, we couldn’t get him out of the stadium (due to interviews and autograph seekers). A five-year-old kid was standing there and finally Reggie saw him. The kid turns to his dad (a coach from another school) and says, ‘Dad, he might be better than some of our hurdlers.’
Wyatt at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in June.
Photo by Kirby Lee
“Watching how he dealt with being Reggie Wyatt was the most fun. Chicks dig him, but they’re afraid of him because he’s so nice,” he laughed. “He’s the nicest top-notch athlete I’ve ever seen.”
The 6-foot-5, 180-pound Wyatt – who has a superb 40-inch vertical jump – started competing in track and basketball when he was seven years old and undoubtedly could have earned a college basketball scholarship had he not later elected to concentrate on track.
Interestingly, Reggie Sr. is a former No. 1 draft choice of the Kansas City Royals (an injury killed his baseball career), but Junior thought his dad’s sport was too slow-moving and rather boring.
In the beginning Wyatt was a sprinter. He must have been a natural because in his very first meet at age seven he won all three of his events: the 50-yard dash, 100- and 200-meter dashes. He immediately was hooked as he won the first three of what today are more than 500 medals.
He made his first mark nationally at age nine when he won the 400-meter dash in one minute-flat during the Junior Olympics in Buffalo, N.Y. He called it “an awesome accomplishment, because I had been running all that year just to make it to the Junior Olympics.”
At age 10, Wyatt began running the longer (800- and 1,500-meter) races, placing fourth in the 1,500 during the Junior Olympics in Sacramento, Calif.
It was only natural, of course, that he would try the five-event pentathlon as an 11-year-old. “I wanted to try something different,” he explained. “I was pretty athletic, so I could do multiple events.” He was right, because he won first place during the Junior Olympics in Omaha, Neb.
Among those finishing far behind him was Curtis Beach, today’s national decathlon record holder.
Wyatt’s curiosity and search for challenges led him to a treadmill that same year. “I was running on it (at a store) and a guy says to turn it up a little,” he recalled. “I kept turning it up faster and faster. But I didn’t know how to stop it. I jumped off and it shot me backwards. I hit a bunch of clothes racks and fell on the floor. I wasn’t hurt. I got right up, but I haven’t been on a treadmill since then.”
As a seventh grader, Wyatt added the hurdles “because I wanted to try different things. They came pretty easy, but I wasn’t particularly the best. The hardest part was learning to get the stride (number of steps between hurdles). I was just running, basically, on natural talent, just having fun.”
He left his mark during his first basketball game as an eighth grader when he stole the ball and slammed home a two-handed dunk. “High school coaches couldn’t believe it,” Reggie Sr. related. “He made his first dunk on a fast break the summer before during an AAU game.”
When Wyatt entered Riverside J.W. North as a freshman, he won the league cross country meet even though he had not worked out with the team. In track, he finally decided that the 300-meter hurdles was going to be his main event. He placed third during a power-packed meet in San Diego and pointed out, “After that I really wanted to focus and improve. My times began improving slowly.”
He showed his huge competitive side during an invitational. He was leading the 300 hurdles race by a good margin when he clipped the last hurdle, lost his balance and fell. He literally rolled the last five yards to hold onto first place.
“I’m very competitive and don’t like to lose,” he says, but his actions speak even louder than words.
Wyatt climaxed that year by winning the CIF Southern Section 300-meter hurdles in a national freshman-record time of 37.42 seconds, then taking fourth at the state meet.
As a freshman, he also led off on a 4x400 relay which posted the nation’s fastest time (3:10.36). Later that summer he again ran the leadoff leg as the relay placed first at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, N.C.
At the same time, he still had been doubling up with basketball. His J.W. North team entered a tournament in Canada and he (as a 6-foot-2 freshman) was assigned to guard a 7-footer from China. He stunned the big guy – who was at least 19 years old - by twice blocking his shots.
“I looked at it as a challenge,” Wyatt said. “I wasn’t going to back down and be scared."
Wyatt pulls away at the CIF State Championships.
Photo by Kirby Lee
Wyatt really became dominant as a sophomore. First he notched the Southern Section championship in both the 300 hurdles and the 400-meter dash. Then he pushed Woodland Hills Taft star Jeshua Anderson to a national record of 35.28 in the 300 hurdles while placing second in a national sophomore-record time of 35.90 at the California state meet.
That summer he set a national sophomore record (50.10) in the 400-meter hurdles at the Nike Outdoor Nationals while placing second behind Georgia star William Wynne. He again placed second to Wynne during the World Youth Championships in the Czech Republic.
During the latter race, Wyatt noted, “I was leading, but I hit a hurdle and it threw the whole race off. I held on to finish second.”
Wyatt also won the 400-meter dash and ran the anchor leg as his 4x400 relay team set a national record (3:06) during the Junior Olympics in Walnut, Calif.
As a junior, Wyatt made a controversial transfer from North to La Sierra and was forced to sit out the entire year. The family always had lived in the La Sierra district, but Wyatt had been given a “hardship” waiver because his father worked close to North and actually helped coach the track team for a couple years. When his father got a job in Chino Hills, he requested that his son attend closer La Sierra, but the Southern Section denied the request.
Reggie Sr., who coaches underprivileged kids, called the transfer “such a relief. They are good coaches (at La Sierra) and were gentle. I trusted them with my son.”
Wyatt Jr. admitted, “It was hard for me not to be able to compete for my high school. It seemed at first it would be like an eternity. Actually, it went pretty fast and it all worked out in the end. I worked out all the time and ran against some pros and college kids (in about five open meets). I actually competed on a higher level.”
That summer he ran 35.71 in the 300 hurdles during the Great Southwest Classic at Albuquerque, N.M. The junior-class national record of 35.33 was set by Robert Griffin of Copperas Cove (Texas) in 2007.
Coming into his senior year, Wyatt was more determined than ever to “go out with a bang.” And that he did, highlighted by his national-record clocking of 35.02 in the 300-meter hurdles during the state meet trials.
Records aside, however, Wyatt endeared himself to La Sierra coaches by being a great team leader. Assistant coach Will Jacobsmeyer recalled a day that “We asked him to run the 800 against a great guy (Southern Section Division I champion Ruben Danielson of Moreno Valley Rancho Verde) and he won. We asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how hard it was. He said it was ‘about a 7.’ He already had won the 400 and later won the 200 that day.”
He graduated with a solid 3.2 GPA and plans to major in business when he enrolls at the University of Southern California in the fall.
His first big meet this summer was the Nike Outdoor Nationals and he didn’t disappoint as he won the 400-meter hurdles in a meet-record 49.78 seconds – his personal best and not far off the national standard of 49.38.
Wyatt then ran 50.02 to win the 400-meter hurdles during the USATF Junior Nationals in Eugene, Ore.
At USC Wyatt says he “wants to progress in my running and training and, hopefully, be in contention for an NCAA championship. One of my goals is the 2012 Olympics. I hope to make the team. One day I would like to run professionally. That’s been a goal since I was a very young age.”
He would like to emulate his idol, world record-holder Kevin Young. “I hope to meet him,” he said. “His world-record race is amazing. I never saw anyone run like him.”
Soon his talent will belong to USC coach Ron Allice, who told MaxPreps, “He’s very modest and his confidence level continues to gain. He is a solid young man. He has the tools mentally and physically to be an outstanding star in this sport. This young man has a future that should put him with the very best.”
