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Saints star McDermott heads for LSU
BY PAUL BURROWES
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
WORLD Youth Championships 400m silver medallist Latoya McDermott, a St Andrew High School standout, is to head for Louisiana State University (LSU) to begin the next chapter in her athletic and school life.
McDermott... holds personal best 53.48secs in 400m
She is one of five St Andrew High athletes who will be leaving for college in the United States within the next two weeks.
Samantha Williams and Melissa Walker will attend the University of Mary in North Dakota, and Shawna Kay Collie and Nicolia Edwards go to Iowa West Community College.
Meanwhile, 19-year-old McDermott said she would major in mass communication and sociology, in the first of a three-year programme.
Add summer classes and McDermott believes she could complete a bachelor and masters degree in that period, while staying on the honour roll, to then focus on her athletic career undistracted.
McDermott holds a personal best 24.33 seconds in the 200m and in her pet event 400m, a personal best 53.48 seconds which she ran as a Class Two athlete in 2007.
The World Youth silver medallist said she hopes to lower her 400m standard to 51 seconds as a freshman for LSU, whose ladies failed to qualify for the 400m at NCAA Division One Championship last year.
At LSU, McDermott joins Edwin Allen High School past student and freshman Naffene Briscoe, who may well be persuaded to move up to the 400m, after personal bests of 11.88 seconds in the 100m and 23.98 seconds in the 200.
St Andrew High coach Leacroft Bolt, who recruited McDermott from Hydel Prep, noted that "in two years she will be running in the 49s to put her on track for the 2012 Olympics. I spoke to Debbie-Ann Parris (assistant coach at LSU) at length at last year's Penn Relays and have put Latoya in her hands.
"Latoya can sustain a pace of 24 seconds for the 200 up to 300 metres, so all LSU needs to do is work on her strength," Bolt explained.
"I don't pressure high school athletes. I give them a normal high school programme so that they will improve when they leave for college," Bolt added.
Bolt proudly claims responsibility for Jamaica's best female quarter-miler, Lorraine Fenton, whom he conditioned when she was at Manchester High.
"The only difference between Latoya and Lorraine is height," said Bolt - Fenton being some three inches taller.
He also believes McDermott will make her mark earlier than Fenton on the world stage, since the Jamaican national record holder made her first 51-second clocking as a 23-year-old for second place in the 400m at the NCAA Division Two Championships in Riverside, California, on May 25, 1996.
In 2008, McDermott suffered from a condition associated with jumpers more than sprinters - patella tendinitis - but Bolt said she has since recovered.
For proof of this, McDermott ran close to her personal best at the 2009 ISSA High Schools Championships when she posted 53.50 seconds, just outside of her personal best 53.48, for second in the Class One 400m. Wolmer's Girls' Jody Ann Muir won in a personal best 53.45.
Latoya first rose to international prominence in 2006 when she won the Central American and Caribbean Junior Under-17 400m title in Port of Spain, Trinidad, clocking 54.10 seconds.
In 2007 at the World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, she lived up to expectations to grab the silver in the 400m in 54.12 seconds, trailing Ukraine's Yuliya Baraley, who won in 53.57 seconds.
She clinched her second silver in the medley relay, running the anchor leg after Gayon Evans, Jura Levy and Shana-Gay Tracey did their part. Jamaica timed 2:06.77, after the USA won with Canada finishing third.
McDermott had a forgettable World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland last year, failing to reach the final of the 400m after finishing fifth in the first semi-final in a time of 54.15 seconds. The 4x400m relay team also fell short at the World Juniors, placing fifth in the second heat.
With all that behind her, McDermott now turns to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for LSU.
She has the support of fellow Jamaicans at LSU such as Samantha Henry, Kayann Thompson, Melissa Ogbourne and her coach, who had been one of Jamaica's outstanding 400m hurdler, Debbie-Ann Parris Thymes.
Thymes ran in the final of every major championships, the best being a silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 1994, respectively. She ran the third leg when Jamaica took the gold medal in the 4x400m relay at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in a then national record of 3:20.65 with Sandie Richards, Catherine Scott, and Fenton
BY PAUL BURROWES
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
WORLD Youth Championships 400m silver medallist Latoya McDermott, a St Andrew High School standout, is to head for Louisiana State University (LSU) to begin the next chapter in her athletic and school life.
McDermott... holds personal best 53.48secs in 400m
She is one of five St Andrew High athletes who will be leaving for college in the United States within the next two weeks.
Samantha Williams and Melissa Walker will attend the University of Mary in North Dakota, and Shawna Kay Collie and Nicolia Edwards go to Iowa West Community College.
Meanwhile, 19-year-old McDermott said she would major in mass communication and sociology, in the first of a three-year programme.
Add summer classes and McDermott believes she could complete a bachelor and masters degree in that period, while staying on the honour roll, to then focus on her athletic career undistracted.
McDermott holds a personal best 24.33 seconds in the 200m and in her pet event 400m, a personal best 53.48 seconds which she ran as a Class Two athlete in 2007.
The World Youth silver medallist said she hopes to lower her 400m standard to 51 seconds as a freshman for LSU, whose ladies failed to qualify for the 400m at NCAA Division One Championship last year.
At LSU, McDermott joins Edwin Allen High School past student and freshman Naffene Briscoe, who may well be persuaded to move up to the 400m, after personal bests of 11.88 seconds in the 100m and 23.98 seconds in the 200.
St Andrew High coach Leacroft Bolt, who recruited McDermott from Hydel Prep, noted that "in two years she will be running in the 49s to put her on track for the 2012 Olympics. I spoke to Debbie-Ann Parris (assistant coach at LSU) at length at last year's Penn Relays and have put Latoya in her hands.
"Latoya can sustain a pace of 24 seconds for the 200 up to 300 metres, so all LSU needs to do is work on her strength," Bolt explained.
"I don't pressure high school athletes. I give them a normal high school programme so that they will improve when they leave for college," Bolt added.
Bolt proudly claims responsibility for Jamaica's best female quarter-miler, Lorraine Fenton, whom he conditioned when she was at Manchester High.
"The only difference between Latoya and Lorraine is height," said Bolt - Fenton being some three inches taller.
He also believes McDermott will make her mark earlier than Fenton on the world stage, since the Jamaican national record holder made her first 51-second clocking as a 23-year-old for second place in the 400m at the NCAA Division Two Championships in Riverside, California, on May 25, 1996.
In 2008, McDermott suffered from a condition associated with jumpers more than sprinters - patella tendinitis - but Bolt said she has since recovered.
For proof of this, McDermott ran close to her personal best at the 2009 ISSA High Schools Championships when she posted 53.50 seconds, just outside of her personal best 53.48, for second in the Class One 400m. Wolmer's Girls' Jody Ann Muir won in a personal best 53.45.
Latoya first rose to international prominence in 2006 when she won the Central American and Caribbean Junior Under-17 400m title in Port of Spain, Trinidad, clocking 54.10 seconds.
In 2007 at the World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, she lived up to expectations to grab the silver in the 400m in 54.12 seconds, trailing Ukraine's Yuliya Baraley, who won in 53.57 seconds.
She clinched her second silver in the medley relay, running the anchor leg after Gayon Evans, Jura Levy and Shana-Gay Tracey did their part. Jamaica timed 2:06.77, after the USA won with Canada finishing third.
McDermott had a forgettable World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland last year, failing to reach the final of the 400m after finishing fifth in the first semi-final in a time of 54.15 seconds. The 4x400m relay team also fell short at the World Juniors, placing fifth in the second heat.
With all that behind her, McDermott now turns to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for LSU.
She has the support of fellow Jamaicans at LSU such as Samantha Henry, Kayann Thompson, Melissa Ogbourne and her coach, who had been one of Jamaica's outstanding 400m hurdler, Debbie-Ann Parris Thymes.
Thymes ran in the final of every major championships, the best being a silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 1994, respectively. She ran the third leg when Jamaica took the gold medal in the 4x400m relay at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in a then national record of 3:20.65 with Sandie Richards, Catherine Scott, and Fenton
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