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| Kenric Young Jr. competing for Gainesville High School's 4x100 meter relay team. |
Needless to say, all four of them were pretty stoked at the idea of competing together on a relay team. That's a line-up that any college track coach dreams about. Considering what all those guys accomplished in high school on the track, it's a wonder none of them moved on to major college track. Shoot, Kenric Young was once considered the fastest athlete in all of Florida!
Kaelin wasn't done there though. He even went on to predict what their time would be:
I sat there for a little while and thought about what he said. I thought, "38 or 37? I wonder what the Utah men's 4x100 meter relay record is?" So naturally, I went to the Track and Field section of the Utah Athletics website and tried to find the old men's records. Wouldn't you know, they weren't there! Only the women's records are on the website. I finally had to track down an old media guide from 2005, the last year of the men's program. Luckily enough it had the men's records in it, and since there hasn't been a men's team since then, the records still stand today. (PS I'm pretty sure I am the only website out there that has the old men's records published so you can check them out here.)
I found out that the current University of Utah men's 4x100 meter relay record is 39.87. If Kaelin Clay is serious, the Utah Football Relay Team would have SMOKED the old team! From there, my natural train of thought drove me down a single path. "I wonder how these other old records hold up against current standards?" From that moment on, I was on another "information quest" and I realized something that came as a surprise even to me.
Take a look at the table below. They compare individual University of Utah men's event records to the 2014 PAC-12 Outdoor Championship Meet results.
| Event | Utah Record | 2014 PAC-12 | Utah Record Would Have Placed Where? |
Points Scored With Utah Record? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 meters | 10:54 ('77) | 10.31 | 5th | 4 |
| 200 meters | 21:40 ('77) | 20.26 | 7th | 2 |
| 400 meters | 46.54 ('69) | 45.05 | 4th | 5 |
| 800 Meters | 1:49.30 ('79) | 1:49.86 | 2nd | 8 |
| 1,500 Meters | 3:43.48 ('02) | 3:36.34 | 5th | 4 |
| 5,000 Meters | 13:44.59 ('99) | 13:41.44 | 2nd | 8 |
| 10,000 Meters | 28:46.00 ('73) | 29:16.71 | 1st | 10 |
| 110-Meter Hurdles | 13.70 ('62) | 13.35 | 3rd | 6 |
| 400-Meter Hurdles | 50.30 ('77) | 51.14 | 1st | 10 |
| 3,000-Meter Steeplechase | 8:36.04 ('78) | 8:49.09 | 1st | 10 |
| 4x100 Meter Relay | 39.87 | 39.43 | 3rd | 6 |
| 4x400 Meter Relay |
3:09.20 ('68)
|
3:07.10 | 3rd | 6 |
| High Jump | 7-3 ('82) | 7-05.75 | 3rd | 6 |
| Pole Vault | 16-7 ('77) | 18-00.50 | 7th | 2 |
| Long Jump | 25-1 ('71) | 26-00.25 | 2nd | 8 |
| Triple Jump | 51-2 ('72) | 52-06.75 | 2nd | 8 |
| Shot Put | 57-0 ('76) | 63-10.25 | 4th | 5 |
| Discus Throw | 173-8 ('71) | 210-09 | 7th | 2 |
| Hammer Throw | 178-6 ('92) | 232-08 | 11th | 0 |
| Javelin Throw | 207-2 ('90) | 243-07 | 8th | 1 |
| Decathlon | 7,546 pts. ('82) | 7801 | 2nd | 8 |
The top three teams at the 2014 PAC-12 Outdoor Championship were Oregon (163.25 points), USC (99 points), and Arizona (83 points). The all-time University of Utah team would have scored 111 points at the 2014 PAC-12 Outdoor Championship meet, meaning they would have come in 2nd place.
If Kaelin Clay was right, that means that Utah would have easily won the 4x100 meter relay. With that speed, it's entirely foreseeable that Clay, McClellon, McCormick, and Young would have individually competed in events like the 100, 200, or 400. All four of them could have easily scored points for the men's team in those events. In that potential scenario, Utah would have made a decent showing at that meet, scoring anywhere between 10-40 points with just four guys!
What's the point to all of this? Nothing really. All of these "what-if's" just burrow themselves into my brain and nag at me until I cant stand it anymore and I have to write about it. Ideally I would love anyone on the Utah football team to read this post, get inspired, and march right up to Chris Hill's office and plead with him to let them compete. Kaelin Clay has moved on to the NFL now, but McClellon, McCormick, and Young are still here. Young's high school coach Rod McNealy said "he could go to the NFL or the 2020 Olympics." Kenric, Delshawn, Troy, just think about the hardware you could win! Let that little "what-if" burrow itself into your brains. *insert winky-face here*
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