At the beginning of this year’s track and field season, Coronado High School senior Davin Collins was assigned to the 400-meter leg in a sprint medley relay while he recovers from a hamstring injury that ended his season last year, a race whose results now ranks the school No. 3 in San Diego.
Collins – alongside teammates Xavier Marsh, William Heyen and Ah’Mahn Oliver – went on to set new school records twice in the 4×100-meter relay lowering the time to 43.43 seconds. The previous record time was held by Felipe Hernandez, Marvin Dingle, Kherri Fernandand, and Steven Gooden whose race at Sweetwater High School in 2000 timed 44.22.
Collins showed out in the 100-meter race, finishing in 11.06 seconds during the Jaguar Invitational at Valley Center on April 18.
“It was definitely a nice feeling like, ‘Oh, finally got it,’” said Collins.
This individual time places him on the Boys Track & Field records for Coronado High School, tied with former Islander Kyle Brown, a record he set in 2008.
The Islanders’ Vincent Russo, Andrew Buck, Derick Ritter and Nathan Ayan also set a new school record of 8:11.24 in the 4×800-meter relay in April.
“We are the fastest sprinters in history at Coronado High School now,” said Cameron Gary, track and field head coach. “That’s why we have the school record.”
Gary explained the sprinters focus on speed and power development.
“It’s impossible to compete at the level that they do without training,” he said.
Gary added that Collins has yet to demonstrate his full potential: “Right now our focus is to get him 100%.”
And Collins, 17, who suffered a hamstring injury last year during the league championships, is up for the challenge.
“Right now, it’s really letting the hamstring heal because I did have another little hiccup on my race where I did tie the school record,” said Collins.
On May 8 the team heads to Central League championships, after which the team may advance to the CIF Division III competition and state championships.
“I want to get as far as I can get while setting the school record,” said Collins. “The objective is just stay hungry and keep training.”
Focused on new records
Collins previously participated in lacrosse at the school and joined track to challenge Heyen in a race his sophomore year.
“(Heyen) was the influence at high school, but if I have to put the pin on one person that definitely kind of sparked it it had to (have) been my grandpa,” said Collins.
Collins remembers running around as a kid and hearing his grandpa encourage his parents to get him to run track.
Across meets, Collins runs the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints as well as the 4×100 and the 4×400 relays.
Collins said track is a demanding sport, but all the training is paying off.
“Track and field is very much whoever wants it the most, necessarily, and who trains the best,” said Collins.
Gary describes Collins as a diligent student-athlete.
“He’s the fastest guy in the relay. Without him it would be very difficult to break the school record,” he added.
In the 4×100, Gary strategically places the fastest runner in the second leg, one of four segments in the race. That spot is Collins’.
“(Coach Gary) doesn’t necessarily force people into being good athletes,” said Collins. “He coaches everybody as a group, and if the people who want to be athletes step forward, he coaches them.”
Collins said he is still recovering from injuries to both hamstrings beginning last spring.
“It ended the season last year, unfortunately, because we qualified for the next round. But I wasn’t able to run, because I was injured,” he said.
Collins said his mindset going into events is just to win, confident that all the practices have led up to competition.
“Success is just being better one day than the other. … Competing with yourself is always the number one thing in my book,” said Collins.
“Right now, the goal is to take the school records we’ve made and just basically make them for the future generation unreachable,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t want Coronado not to have any success in the future, but we want to be the best version of Coronado.”
This fall, Collins plans to major in criminal justice and criminology at Colorado State University. He said he hopes to be a detective one day.
