Senior Jamil Adams and coach Anthony Witter aim for a successful spring season to bring home titles
Winslow High School senior Jamil Adams is ready to “take South Jersey by storm,” as the spring season of track and field moves forward.
After a weekend of competing at New Balance Nationals Indoors, taking home fourth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8:04, and holding a spot in the top 20 run times in the country, Adams looks forward to an exciting final year on the Winslow team.
“One of our goals this spring is to finally win a relay title. Last year, we won the conference for the first time in 10 years at Winslow, and it’s been about 10 years since the boys team has won a relay title,” Coach Anthony Witter said. “We have about four relays we are going to go to this year. We’re trying to get the program back up and running like it used to be. The boys program used to be very dynamic here, so we’re trying to get back to our old ways.”
Having won the 2016 state champion title for the 400-meter hurdles last year, Jamil aims to win again this year, with the goal of also winning state for the 110-meter hurdles, and a sectional title for the team.
“I believe in my team that we can do really good things this year,” Adams said. “Everyone just needs to come together and do it as one. I look forward to this season, it’s definitely going to be something special.”
Adams hopes to improve his speed with numbers in the 52-second range for the 400-meter hurdles, and break the 14-second barrier into 13 seconds for the 110-meter hurdles.
“This month, we’re going to focus on getting him a little bit stronger and work on his speed a little bit more, so he can become more and more confident,” Witter said.
In outdoors track, Adams runs in the 400-meter hurdles, his favorite, 110-meter hurdles, 800-meter run, and 4×400, 4×800 and 4×200 relays.
“One of the interesting things about Jamil is that he’s very rangey; he’s the type of kid who can do multiple events,” Witter said. “He did four events at sectionals and scored 28 points. When it comes to schools and colleges, they look for guys who are rangey and can do multiple events because it actually helps them in regard to winning conferences.”
Adams said his advice to other runners would be to never give up. After starting a season this past winter with two false-starts and Witter taking him out of races, Adams said taking a step back is what drove him to his undefeated season in South Jersey and led him to success in sectionals and states.
“I’ve been through some rough times this year, but I never gave up. I remember coming home from track and just being so disappointed. Even at championships this year, I ran a terrible race. I hit hurdles, I almost fell, but the next week after that is when I ran my best time,” Adams said. “There’s going to be some rough times in this sport, but as long as you push through and persevere, better times are definitely coming.”
