HOG CALLS: Playing two sports benefits Hamilton

— Every step Cobi Hamilton took anchoring the Arkansas Razorbacks’ 4 x 100 relay this spring ought to improve his football next fall.

Razorbacks wide receivers coach Kris Cinkovich, Razorbacks sprints coach Doug Case and Hamilton all concur that running at this week’s NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore., should enhance Hamilton’s football skills all the more.

Attaining the biggest stage in college track can help Hamilton handle the enormous stage of college football, the coaches said. Especially running the 4x100.

“A lot of timing involved, handeye coordination and patience,” Case said of exchanging the baton. “You don’t want to jump out too soon and run away from the incoming runner, but if you wait too long, the guy is going to run over you.

“There is a lot to the 4x100 that correlates great to football.”

Cinkovich agrees.

“The teamwork that’s involved,the precision that’s involved, those are all attributes that cross over to both sports,” Cinkovich said. “I think they are helping him and they are going to show up in football.”

Lettering as a true freshman receiver (19 catches, 347 yards and 3 touchdowns) for Coach Bobby Petrino’s Razorbacks last fall, Hamilton said his indoor season running the 200 meters for Coach Chris Bucknam’s track team last winter manifested in his spring football practices.

“I was a better football player this spring,” Hamilton, 6-3, said. “I feel lighter and more lean. Before track, I was 7.8 percent body fat. Now, I am like 6.6. I weigh right at 200. I only lost three or four pounds, but I feel quicker. I feel my strides have developed.”

Both sports sharpen the other’s competitive edge.

“The guy who is a two-sport athlete knows how to compete,” Cinkovich said. “That’s something they don’t have to be told. From what I heard [at the NCAA West preliminary meet] Cobi passed a couple of people and got them in the money.”

The record of mutual football/ track stardom speaks for itself, Case and Hamilton said, citing former Olympic champion/NFL star Willie Gault and 2009 college football/track champions C.J. Spiller at Clemson and Florida’s Jeff Demps.

“There is nothing like speed,” Case said. “You can ask football coaches that.”

While planning it will improve his football, Hamilton runs track for track like he did at Texas High in Texarkana.

After watching as a recent highschool graduate the 2009 NCAA Outdoor meet the UA hosted in Fayetteville, Hamilton calls anchoring the Arkansas 4x100 team of fellow freshmen Caleb Cross and Hunter Bourke and junior college transfer LaShawn Butler in Eugene “a dream come true.”

“He’s a track and field fan,” Case said. “He loves it. That makes him highly motivated.”

Hamilton’s motivation is thoroughly tested combining track workouts with football’s off-season program already under way.

His current football training is heavy into weights.

That’s fine with Bucknam and Case, providing Hamilton doesn’t overdo it.

For only through weights, say the coaches of both sports, will Hamilton gain the explosiveness to be all that he can be.

“One thing I regret in high school is I didn’t lift weights at all,” Hamilton said. “I hated to lift weights, but you can’t get me out of the weightroom now.”

Sports, Pages 16 on 06/07/2010