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By Christopher Hunt
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Andrew Hendrix grabbed the North Carolina flag from one side of the medal podium. His twin brother Anthony snatched the American flag from the other end. They both took off, along with Fuquawn Greene and Miles Sparks for the only victory lap of the entire meet.
They could celebrated anyway they chose to. They were that good.
This time anyone left in the stadium at North Carolina A&T stood and either raved in excitement or silence in awe after Anthony Hendrix (46.6), Greene (47.6), Sparks (47.5) and Andrew Hendrix (45.9) demolished the field in the 4x400 at Nike Outdoor Nationals in 3:08.05, the second-fastest time in United States history. It was the top of a historic weekend for Track Eastern Carolina (New Bern, N.C.) were they proved again to be one of the greatest scholastic sprint relays ever assembled, sweeping the sprint relays and setting two meet records, including a national record in the 800-meter sprint medley relay.
“It’s been fun with the twins here,” Greene said. “We’re just like a big family. The whole team is a family.”
You could tell by the way coach Dave Simpson gets choked up every time he talks about the growth his team ever since world-renowned author Nicholas Sparks became an assistant coach and helped turn a despotic program into a national-caliber team with a new track and a budget to travel around the country – all on his dollar.
“We had to go out and knock on doors and have car washes,” Simpson said. “Then here comes nick and gives us a budget that allows us to travel all around the country. We built a track so we don’t have deal with injuries. .. .There are times that I sit back and wonder, how did this happen? Why?”
It’s what helped turn the Hendrix twins from knuckleheads to star athletes, who will compete at Rend Lake College, a junior college in Illinois, in the fall. Greene used to hang out with a local gang in middle school, now team can hang out a boat with their teammate, Miles Sparks, a top-notch sprinter in his own right, who happens to be the son of a man who has penned 14 novels including The Notebook.
“This team is everything,” Andrew Hendrix said. “’If I wouldn’t have run track, who knows where I’d be. I could probably be locked up or something.”
And with all they’ve already done. They still walked into their last scholastic competition with something to prove. They wanted to win four relays at the national championships, a mountainous task made all too plausible given the fact that three of the best sprinters in the country (the Hendrix twins and Greene) were wearing the same jerseys. Simpson and his team said throughout the meet that their only mission was to win four races, not make “an attack on an national records,” as Simpson said.
They won the 1,600 sprint medley relay and the 4x200 on Friday. Then broke the national record in the 800 medley relay Saturday, clocking 1:28.20 with Greene, the twins and senior Daishawn Styron, to better a mark set by Long Beach Poly of 1:28.43 in 2003. That followed by a meet record in the 4x400 that missed the national record by .65 of a second.
Without question it’ll be difficult to watch a dynasty end. But Simpson said he has to let go.
“These are kids that have been in my house, been in Nick’s house,” he said. “You have some coaches that jump up and want to follow their kids everywhere. I’m going to let thing go follow their dreams. We’re still going to be in contact but they’ll have to go on.”
At the same time, they are family so even though they leave it doesn’t mean they’re gone.
“They’re not going anywhere,” Nicholas Sparks said. “These kids are like my sons. They are my sons.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.