FAYETTEVILLE — Not all of the big-time Jamaicans in Razorbacks track and field arrive big-time at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
It just seems that way. Veronica Campbell was already an Olympic medalist before she sprinted to NCAA championships for Coach Lance Harter’s Lady Razorbacks.
Omar Brown, Campbell’s husband and All-American sprinter for retired Arkansas Men’s Coach John McDonnell, was previously renowned in his Jamaica homeland. So were current 2-time NCAA champion Razorbacks senior triple jumper Clive Pullen, a 2016 Olympian defending his SEC Outdoor triple jump championship for Arkansas Men’s Coach Chris Bucknam’s Razorbacks Saturday in Columbia, S.C., former Razorbacks distance All-American/Jamaican Olympian Kemoy Campbell, and Omar Mc-Leod, the 4-time former Razorbacks NCAA champion and NCAA Indoor 60-meter hurdles record-setter winning Olympic gold in 2016.
But Kemar Mowatt of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica arrived in Fayetteville not recruited by any big-time school. Now the junior 2-year testament to men’s sprints coach Doug Case’s developmental abilities competes for Bucknam’s reigning SEC Outdoor champions as a 2-time All-American and the 2017 collegiate leader in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles. Mowatt clocked the 2017 season’s best 49.09 two weekends ago at the SEC Relays shattering his last year’s personal best 50.66. Last Friday Mowatt posted a season’s best 13.94 in the 110-meter hurdles at Arkansas’ Twilight Invitational.
“I did start out at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi,” Mowatt said. “I wasn’t offered any scholarships from the big schools fighting for championships. So I had to work my way until I had the opportunity to talk to Coach Buck and Coach Case. I needed to improve. A&M-Corpus Christi, that’s a small program and the coaches aren’t as experienced as the coaches here. So for me being here, it’s a big opportunity. Jamaicans love Arkansas.”
Bucknam said Case saw long term 400-meter hurdles potential in Mowatt’s long-legged 6-2 frame that ran a 51.33 for fifth as a 2015 freshman at the Southland Conference Outdoor.
A&M-Corpus Christi granted Mowatt’s scholarship release.
Arkansas reaped unexpected 2016 benefits.
Before last year’s NCAA Outdoor, 2015 national champion 4x100 relay member Marqueze Washington tore his hamstring. Just like the short hurdles, Mowatt’s unwinding 6-2 stride isn’t geared to the ballistic sprints, yet he went All-American ballistic
“Case put him in the 4x100, and he did a phenomenal job for us,” Bucknam said. “We finished third at the NCAA Championships, and he’s really not a 100-meter guy. But he showed great speed.”
Now in Arkansas’ SEC Outdoor title defense, Arkansas counts heavily on Mowatt in the 400 hurdles and 4x100, and maybe he can nab an eighth-place point among the nation’s fastest 110-meter hurdlers.
“We may really need that point,” Bucknam said of challenges anticipated from Alabama and Texas A&M.
“I’ll do anything for my team,” Mowatt said. “We are always vying for a SEC championship and a national championship, so I’ll do what I have to do.”
“I wasn’t offered any scholarships from the big schools fighting for championships. So I had to work my way until I had the opportunity to talk to Coach Buck and Coach Case. I needed to improve. A&M-Corpus Christi, that’s a small program and the coaches aren’t as experienced as the coaches here. So for me being here, it’s a big opportunity. Jamaicans love Arkansas.”
— Kemar Mowatt, University of Arkansas junior