FAYETTEVILLE - For the Liberty-Eylau High School boy’s track team on the Texas side of Texarkana it seemed Jarrion Lawson did everything except drive the team bus.
“I think he drove that, too,” Arkansas Razorbacks men’s assistant coach Doug Case interjected wryly.
Arkansas field events coach Travis Geopfert and sprints coach Case, co-recruiting Lawson out of Liberty-Eylau and co-coaching the freshman for Coach Chris Bucknam’s Razorbacks men, described Lawson as driving Liberty-Eylau track and field almost by himself.
“He was the workhorse in high school,” Geopfert said. “He long jumped, triple jumped, and ran the 200, 4x100 and 4x400 in almost every single meet.”
The workhorse past brought Lawson to Arkansas experienced to do about everything but temporarily unable to do much of anything.
“He did a lot of good things but he came in with a pretty bad case of tendinitis,” Geopfert said. “We have been managing that all year long. That’s why he hasn’t triple jumped.”
Lawson not only hasn’t triple jumped, but indoors he sprinted but once and only long jumped four times. Under coaches orders, Lawson even skipped Arkansas winning the SEC Indoor to save his sore legs for the NCAA Indoor Championships.
The patience paid off. Lawson long jumped a career long 26-0 to finish an All-American third. That scored six team points toward Arkansas winning the national championship.
“We rolled the dice on that, man,” Geopfert said, “It was a calculated risk on our part with the team points but at the end of the day, it was what was best for the team at the national championships and it was best for Jarrion.”
Now with the tendinitis eased, Lawson both long jumps and runs the second leg of Arkansas’ 400 meter relay as the Razorbacks bid to follow their NCAA Indoor championship and SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor championships with a national outdoor championship at this week’s NCAA Outdoor which runs Wednesday through Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
“It’s going good right now” Lawson said. “Way better than it did for the indoor season. I have been going at a steady pace and getting treatment.”
At the SEC Outdoor in Columbia, Mo., Lawson long jumped 25-4 for fourth place and helped Arkansas’ 400 meter relay team run a blazing 39.34, fourth in the super fast SEC.
At the NCAA West Preliminary in Austin Texas, Lawson helped the Hogs, minus academically ineligible senior All-American Marek Niit, advance the 400 meter relay team to second in its heat to Eugene. He won the West Prelim long jump at a new career best 26-0 1-4.
“Going into that third jump at Regionals he didn’t have a jump that was going to make the final,” Geopfert said. “It was time to light it up and he did. It was needed, much needed at the time. Then we shut him down for the final three jumps.”
Just like indoors, Geopfert plots Lawson saving his biggest jump for the biggest meet of all.
Sports, Pages 16 on 06/03/2013