CORRECTION: The results of the Frosh/Soph championships were revised after this article was published. According to meet director Phil Zodda, the results of the 110 hurdles and 100 hurdles were not timed using fully-automated timing (FAT).
The revised results (found here) list Jose Farley Jr.'s winning time in the 110 hurdles as a hand-timed 14.3.
By Christopher Hunt
Sheepshead Bay coach John Padula said he called 10 people. He didn’t believe. He needed confirmation.
“Fourteen-oh-three? Are you sure?” Padula said.
Even logic can’t argue with the clock. Jose Farley, Jr. broke the New York State sophomore class 110 hurdles record Saturday at the Marty Lewis Classic in an eye-popping 14.03 seconds winning the sophomore race at South Shore High in Brooklyn. That’s nearly a full second off his previous personal best, 14.92 at the NYC Mayor’s Cup Classic last month.
“It was the kind of race you can’t go back to,” Farley said. “It was the perfect race. You can’t go back and have another race like that.”
The performance gives reason to believe that the sophomore can be just the fourth New Yorker to break 14 seconds since Greg Hines of Walt Whitman clocked 13.94 in 1993. Since then Steven McLean of Transit Tech ran 13.93 in 2007 and Farley former teammate, Darryl Bradshaw ran 13.90 at the Brooklyn Borough championships last year. Padula was at the Howard Richter Invitational with the rest of the varsity team when he heard.
“I didn’t believe it,” Padula said. “When they called me and told me I didn’t believe it. I kept asking if they were sure. What was the wind? I called like 10 people just to confirm it.”
Realistically, Farley figured he could come in at 14.2. Even though he is a sophomore himself, he didn’t expect any competition from his sophomore competitors. He certainly didn’t think he would be sniffing a sub-14 run.
“When Darryl ran 13.9, I was like, damn, that’s going to be hard,” Farley said. “But now I think I can touch it. Maybe if I have someone with me.”
No one in the state has run within four-tenths of a second of Farley’s class record. Padula said that Farley had been excelling in the weight room. He knew that Farley was getting stronger and faster. But not like this.
“I knew that I just had to get in front and then focus on myself,” Farley said. “I had to get my lead leg down and my trail leg down. I had to work my arms. Before I felt like my start was decent but it wasn’t good. I just needed some speed on the start.”
He finished nearly an entire second ahead of the second-place finisher.
“After the race I felt winded,” he said. “I never feel winded after a race. I didn’t know the actual time. When I found out I was just like, ‘Wow.’”
Wow indeed.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.