Vilseck's David Harris celebrates as he wins the 110-meter hurdles race in 15.51 seconds at the DODDS-Europe track and field championships in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Saturday, May 24, 2014. Harris, who also won the 300-meter hurdle race, has been selected as the Stars and Stripes Athlete of the Year for boys track and field. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)
Vilseck's David Harris celebrates as he wins the 110-meter hurdles race in 15.51 seconds at the DODDS-Europe track and field championships in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Saturday, May 24, 2014. Harris, who also won the 300-meter hurdle race, has been selected as the Stars and Stripes Athlete of the Year for boys track and field. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)
Vilseck's David Harris crosses the last hurdle to win the 300-meter hurdles at the DODDS-Europe track and field championships in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Saturday, May 24, 2014. Harris, who also won the 110-meter race, has been selected as the Stars and Stripes Athlete of the Year for boys track and field. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Something happened to Vilseck’s David Harris at last year’s DODDS Europe Track and Field Championships.
As a junior, Harris says he “froze up” during the finals, mustering only a fifth-place finish in both the 110- and 300-meter hurdles.
The only “F” word that describes Harris’ season this year is “focus.” The senior worked harder in practice than ever and peaked at the right time, a winning formula of grit and good timing that capped a stellar senior year on the track, making him the 2014 Stars and Stripes male track and field Athlete of the Year.
Harris not only improved on his own personal times at the championship meet, but he beat out two DODDS-Europe athletes considered his top rivals en route to earning two gold medals in the same events in which he was fifth a year ago.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling” Harris said of winning two European track titles. “I honestly didn’t expect this for my senior year. I didn’t even expect to be in Europe for my senior year. There’s no telling where the Army will take you.”
Emily Walton, the Falcons head track and field coach, never heard Harris express dissatisfaction about his performances last year, but she did notice a more determined Harris show up for practice this track season.
“David’s always been a pretty good natural athlete,” she said. “This year, his focus and attitude at practice was that of a collegiate athlete. He had such a great focus … nothing was going to get in his way. He had it from Day One of this year.”
Still stinging from the disappointment of how his season ended last year, Harris said he set his sights on the gold, but knew he would have to conquer his own nerves and some tough competition.
In the 300-meter hurdles, Ansbach senior Brian Debel was Harris’ chief nemesis. Throughout the regular season this year, Harris and Debel swapped victories. Debel had the edge going into Europeans, entered with the top time in the 300-meter hurdles.
Though Harris held the top seed in the 110-meter hurdles, breathing down his neck was Wiesbaden senior Reymoi Jno-Lewis, the second seed whom Harris had yet to beat in head-to-head competition.
After Friday’s preliminaries at Europeans, it looked as if the Jno-Lewis streak would continue, with Jno-Lewis beating Harris by hundredths of seconds to enter the finals as the top seed. But in the finals, instead of being frozen, Harris’ feet were fleet. He ran a 15.51, comfortably ahead of Jno- Lewis’s 16. 41.
In the 300- meter hurdles, Harris entered with the top seed coming out of preliminaries. Taking nothing for granted, he ran faster in the finals, 40.31 – the only runner to break 41 seconds in either the preliminaries or finals.
His worst time in the event on the season was 43.53 seconds, Walton said. “To run three seconds faster (in the finals), that’s a pretty huge improvement in that short of a race,” she said.
Harris also earned team points for the Falcons at the championships in an event he only ran for the first time at the last regular season track meet.
“I put him in the open 200 (meters) in the last meet at Ansbach just because I wanted to see what he could do,” Walton said. Harris ended up qualifying for Europeans and in the finals finished seventh with a time of 23.45 seconds.
Harris also ran the last leg on the Falcons’ 1,600-meter relay team, which finished second.
Walton said Harris is a natural leader. “He leads by example more than anything,” she said. “He’s not one to be loud or order people around. He definitely leads by example and others take notice of that.”
Harris tried out the hurdles in eighth grade on advice from his dad, Lynwood Harris, an Army staff sergeant. “My dad was like ‘Oh, I used to do hurdles, so it’s in you,’” Harris said.
In addition to maintaining a laser focus in track practice this year, Harris said more specialized drills, including jumping over hurdles set at different heights and sprinting down a football field set up with a hurdle, helped him improve.
“It gave me a whole new challenge,” Harris said.
Another boost was support from his dad and mom, Sharon Harris.
They were the loudest people in the crowd at the championship meet, he said. “You can ask anyone.”
“I always hear my parents,” he said. “I swear, I hear no one else: ‘Go David, go David.’ They’re always there for me.”
Despite his feats on the track this year, Harris is leaning towards playing basketball when he enrolls at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina next fall.
He’s been playing basketball even longer than he’s been running track.
No matter what he does, his motto will continue to be: “Never give up, keep working hard.”
