Vilseck’s Samual Broyles edges out Kaiserslautern’s Quincy Seaberry in the boys 200-meter race at the 2025 DODEA-Europe track and field finals in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Broyles crossed the finish line in 22.86 seconds to Seaberry’s 22.88. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)

Samuel Broyles stewed on the 231-mile bus ride back to Vilseck following the 2024 DODEA European track and field championships in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Described as normally boisterous by his coach Diana Geiger, the then-junior isolated himself in his thoughts, which centered around his disappointment at placing sixth in the 200- and 400-meter dashes.

“I was just so unsatisfied with how it went that I decided at that moment that I didn’t want to feel that way again,” Broyles said. “I felt the only way I could avoid that feel after this season was to win.”

Stars and Stripes’ boys track and field Athlete of the Year for Europe did his fair share of winning in 2025.

The Falcon senior bounced back, taking gold in the 200 and 400 during last month’s European championships at Kaiserslautern High School in 22.86 and 50.91 seconds, respectively. Broyles just missed a sprinting triple crown with a runner-up finish in the 100 in 11.47, 0.22 seconds behind winner Quincy Seaberry of Kaiserslautern.

“I (did) everything that I wanted to do this year and I wasn’t left feeling disappointed,” Broyles said. “I knew I got out of Euros what I put in in the offseason, and that was pretty rewarding.”

That hard work started almost immediately after last spring’s letdown.

Broyles kept doing in-season workouts during the summer, and he sought advice from other sources. He spent a week at the SPIRE Institute, a sports complex 47 miles northeast of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio, for a weeklong track camp.

When football season ended in the fall, he soaked up as much information as he could online by researching college athletes and acclaimed sprint coaches, trying to add to his own workouts to improve himself.

So, when he stepped onto the track for the first time on March 22 in Stuttgart, Broyles had a head start over previous years. The senior posted a 23.07-second 200, a nearly 1.2-second improvement from his first meet the previous year.

Broyles, who originally went out for track at the behest of Vilseck football coach Eric Mead in 2023, said he noticed improvement over the entire season – not just between campaigns.

His track coach noticed subtle changes to Broyles’ attitude this spring. But she also said many qualities on display were there all three years of his Vilseck track career.

“He was … doing his best in leadership and work ethic, even taking some time outside of practice and working on the little things here and there,” Geiger said. “He’s been similar in many ways the three years I’ve had him, but I’ve definitely seen a lot of maturity and growth in him as well.”

One of the biggest areas of improvement came in the 400, where Broyles dropped more than 4 seconds from his time at the 2024 European meet by the end of the season.

He entered the 2025 championships as the fifth seed with a qualifying time of 52.61 seconds, set during a home meet on April 12. Two opponents – Aviano’s Christian Perkins and SHAPE’s Tudor Varvari – had come close to breaking 51 seconds, both in the weeks leading up to the finals.

Yet Broyles was the only one to cross that threshold, setting a new personal record in the process.

“I talked to some of the guys after the race, and they were asking me where that came from and said they weren’t expecting that,” Broyles said. “I told them, ‘I was not expecting it, either.’”

The race he anticipated winning handily – the 200 – ended up being a photo finish.

Entering Euros with the top time, Broyles came out flying, but 70 meters into the race, he felt a “pretty bad” tweak or light pull in his left hamstring. He stepped off the gas a little to finish the race without aggravating the injury more.

At the line, he saw Seaberry pass by him on the left. The Falcon senior had to wait for the results like everybody else in the crowd.

It turned out that he defeated the Raider junior by 0.02 seconds.

“The race did not go at all how I expected,” Broyles said of the 200. “I thought in that moment that I hadn’t done enough. I was a bit of a mess for a few minutes until they announced the results. That was nerve racking.”

The win in the 200 perhaps meant more to Broyles, who began his track and field career and likely ended it in his favorite race.

This fall, Broyles will head to Ohio State University on a three-year ROTC scholarship where he will study exercise science education. He said he might try to walk onto the track team, but he understands competition with the Buckeyes is fierce.

On May 23, though, he still had one trip back to Vilseck from his last competition. The vibes were a complete 180 from the one he experienced the year before.

“Probably my favorite sports bus ride out of all of the years of track and football in high school,” Broyles said.