Seymour long jumper, sprinter makes strides in two years

April 11, 2019

While growing up in Crothersville, Isaac Thompson enjoyed watching his uncle, Caleb Minton, compete in track and field.

Thompson has attended Seymour High School since his freshman year and decided to get involved in the sport last spring.

“(Minton) did track and cross-country, and I went to his meets, and I always generally enjoyed it,” Thompson said. “When I got to Seymour, I switched from baseball to track, and I’ve enjoyed running.”

Thompson has been in the long jump and ran the 100- and 200-meter dashes for the Owls.

He said he had the best long jump of his career last week against Jennings County and Bedford North Lawrence when he leaped 17 feet.

“I’d say the most challenging part about the long jump is getting your steps down,” Thompson said. “Once you get out there and you know where you’re supposed to be, you just have to worry about keeping your speed and keeping that consistency and just launching off and trying to jump as far as you can, pulling those legs up, tucking up and flying outward.”

Thompson said the coaches have the athletes try different techniques to get more height and length in the event.

“When I was starting my first year of track, they put a cone out, and everybody got over the cone,” he said. “They then stuck a hurdle out there, and everybody said, ‘I don’t know about sticking a hurdle out there,’ and he said, ‘Just run and jump over it. You can do it.’ You’d be surprised how easy it is to get over one of those hurdles when you’re running.”

Thompson said he has enjoyed working with assistant coach Johnnie Spivey in the long jump.

“We take turns at practice. A couple of us have kind of stepped up, and we’ll just rotate and have some people watch the board to see if they scratch or not,” he said. “Whenever it’s a just field day like that, we’ll work on launching off and keeping tucked and stuff like that, things we need to tweak to get more distance.”

He said he usually gets his longest jump on his second attempt.

“On the first one, I just go and make sure my steps are right and I’m going off the board right, and then the second one, I give it 110 percent of everything I’ve got to go out as far as possible,” Thompson said.

Thompson wants to get most of his long jumps in before he starts running sprints. His goal is to top 18 feet.

“My events are perfectly spaced out,” he said. “By the time I get done with my three jumps, I’ll have a couple of minutes to take a rest, get a drink and then I’ll start to warm up to do the 100.”

He said the 100 is his favorite race and that practice is important for all events.

“Before we started the season, we had days where we had a workout day, and as we got closer to the meets, we had field days,” Thompson said. “The field days are pretty much exactly the same where we would break out in our field events and work on those.

“On workout days, we’ll get out and the sprinters are either on the field doing the suicide runs or do ladders on the track, like a 400, then a 300, then a 200 and a 100. We’ll run different levels of sprints to work on our stamina as well as speed.”

Thompson has enjoyed attending SHS.

“There are a lot more people you can be friends with, and there are a lot more relationships that can be had,” he said. “The classmates are nice.”

[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Thompson file” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]

Name: Isaac Thompson

High school: Seymour

Parents: Sabrina Dailey and Michael Thompson

Siblings: Madison, Lesley and Josilyn

Sport: Track and field, two years

Organizations: Seymour High School tech department, Krave student ministries youth group

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