As per usual, it was a stellar two days of running, jumping, and throwing at Mike A. Myers Stadium on the UT campus this weekend at the UIL Track & Field Championships. I’ll post a lengthier review later (or you can check out the live blog I did for Track & Field News), but the very biggest highlights included Copperas Cove’s Robert Griffin coming within one-hundredth of a second of the national high school record in the 300-meter hurdles, a record that has stood firm since 1985. Another big highlight is featured in the photo gallery to the right: San Antonio Stevens’ Rynell Parson (in red and black) came to Austin as the talk of the town because of his nation-leading time of 10.32 seconds in the 100 meters – and he’s only a sophomore. He took that race as easily as expected, but when he got to the 200 meters, it was a different story: Austin High senior Mychal Dungey was the defending state champ and wasn’t ready to surrender his crown to some young whippersnapper. And he had motivation: At regionals, Parson nipped him by .01, Dungey’s first loss in two years. After two weeks to stew about it, Dungey put together a brilliant race. It wasn’t easy, but he held off his younger rival in 21.06 seconds vs. Parson’s 21.19.
This article appears in May 11 • 2007.