One never knows what can happen in sports!
An athlete can start out young and can develop into an all-County, all-Conference, all-State, all-American, and maybe even an Olympian.
Take the Open 1,000-meter run for boys in the Friendship Games, the second of three meets on the track and field schedule during the winter with the finals to be held on Martin Luther King Day.
It was early in the program or the meet’s second event at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York There were two sections based on time with 10 athletes in the first or seeded section, the faster one, and nine in the second,section – the slower section.
After Eugene Lease, a senior at Island Trees High School, won his section in 2:43.30 in the 1,000-meter run, Sebastian Buckeridge, a freshman at Freeport High, easily took the second heat in 3:04.60. No one from the slower section broke in.
Overall, Buckeridge ran his 3:04.60 for 11th place, thus becoming the fastest freshman in the event. Sebastian is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps. Both originally hail from Jamaica, West Indies where they both were runners.
Joel Buckeridge, in fact, ran a shorter distance race and it was the 400 meters.
Before a race, Joel would give some advise and strategy talk to his son, as well.
“He gives me some advise,” said Sebastian. “He tells me to run straight, always keep a good pace or follow someone in first (place), eat healthy and always bring a snack after your race, drink and eat an orange, and protein bars.”
Joel is presently retired and never played any sports.
Sebastian has been at this running sport since he was in the fifth grade in his native land of Jamaica, West Indies.
“I used to do the 100 meters and the 4 x 1 and when I came here (to Freeport), I did the long distance races,” he recalled.
The coaches at Freeport High School are very high on Sebastian. “This is his first time running an indoor race for us,” the student athlete said. “And he is doing very well. He is pushing some of the upper class men in practice.”
When he entered Freeport High School in September at first he did not go out for the cross country team, for he didn’t even realize that it had started.
His goal is to put his picture on the wall at Freeport High. In order for him to do so, he has to do good and win.
Awards of different kinds and places will be presented Monday after the championship events which are the main races of the meet.
