Trey Blount speaks for all of us when we watch what Matthew Boling can do.
“There’s no reason he is that fast,” Blount said after he saw up close what Boling can really do. “Why is he that fast?”
The Georgia freshman made the ESPYs for his exploits as a true high school track superstar so far this year. His budding Olympian resume glimmers with the following:
- 100 meters: 9.98 (wind-aided)
- 200 meters: 20.30
- 400 meters: 46.15
- Long jump: 26’3.5″
My. Gosh. A freshman.
As it turns out, the Bulldog head coach got to recruit him, too.
Kirby Smart called on Boling to close things out for the coaching staff during a match race with the Georgia football team on Monday. Boling was granted the chance to run the anchor leg as a “ringer” for the coaches in a 4X100 race at the end of practice.
It sure beats doing gassers. But Bolling supplied the gas on this rare.
Richard LeCounte III took the relay baton with an approximate 15-yard head start on Boling.
LeCounte is a very fast football player.
Boling is already among the world’s fastest humans.
The Georgia freshman from Houston hawked LeCounte down to earn the win for the coaching staff.
Check it out below:
Bolling has some more dazzling sprint bullet points on his resume:
He won the 100 meters at a high school meet in a wind-legal 10.13 seconds, tied for the fastest time ever in in-season varsity competition and tied for the fifth-fastest by any U.S. high school sprinter, anywhere at any time.
The Georgia freshman chose the Bulldogs over strong interest in Texas, Stanford and UCLA.
The 6-foot, 170-pounder is tall for an elite sprinter and was seen as a decathlete early in his track career. But he’s clearly advanced beyond that now.
What will Matthew Boling do at Georgia?
“As of June 6, Boling’s best wind-legal 100-meter time (10.13) ranked him 47th in the world; his 400 (46.15 last year) did not rank in the top 100; his long jump (26’3”) was 34th, and seventh among Americans. Hence, the long jump would seem to present his best path to making the U.S. Olympic team next summer. “He’s gone 26’3″ and run 9.98 windy,” says Kyprianou. “That’s Carl Lewis material.” (Lewis is the greatest sprinter–long jumper in history, with personal bests of 9.86 and 29’1″, the third-longest jump ever.) Kyprianou says, “Right now, Matthew is probably using 30% of that 9.98 speed in the long jump, because his body just isn’t strong enough to handle it—yet. That’s something we will work on.”
The Georgia players had a clear reaction to watching Boling cut it loose up close.
Former Georgia great David Andrews summed up the day’s events rather well.
