Four-star Gatlin Bair is on the fast track to stardom

“I went down there and I talked to everybody before and I told everybody I was going to run a 10.2,” Bair said. “A lot of people didn’t really believe me. It was a lot of time off my [personal record] from the previous season but I knew the work I put in and I knew that’s what I was capable of.

“It was really exciting when I crossed the finish line. There was a 10.13 on the board and it ended up being a 10.18. Just seeing that time flash up you can’t describe that feeling of all the hard work paying off.

“Just walking back, I shocked a lot of people in the crowd. The crowd was pretty much silent after I won that race. Everybody was in shock. I got asked probably 50 or 60 times where Burley was and I’d tell them Idaho and they got even more shocked. It was a really cool experience.”

Without sounding conceited, Bair went to Texas on a mission: To show he’s the fastest football player who runs track in the country. Not Pleasant. And not Harbor, who earned five-star status in part because of his elite track times especially in the 200 meters.

From little Burley, about 2.5 hours give-or-take a few minutes between Boise and Salt Lake City, Bair proved a big point and without a big entourage.

“I beat Rodrick Pleasant previous to that and he was known as the other track/football star,” Bair said. “Those were known as the two-fastest football players in the nation so going in I wanted to solidify my spot as the fastest football player in the nation. Beating those two was a huge accomplishment.”

There are no speed trainers or track gurus in Burley but Bair doesn’t need those guys. His dad, Brad, is the track coach at the high school and he has been the four-star’s only trainer all these years.

Bair, who caught 73 passes for 1,073 yards and 18 touchdowns in his junior season and now has a top five of Nebraska, Michigan, TCU, Boise State and Oregon, doesn’t need much else.

“My dad has been the track coach at Kimberly and now Burley so he’s trained me my entire life,” Bair said. “He’s really the only guy who’s ever trained me. He talks a lot about the football and the strength and conditioning part of it and that’s what he loves to do. He’s been my track coach since the day I could walk.

“I spend all offseason in the weight room with him. It was pretty cold so we’d end up doing sprints in the halls. He does a phenomenal job training me and that’s where I get all the training from him.”

What’s different about Bair from Harbor and Pleasant as well is that he doesn’t see track as part of his future. Despite the success, despite beating those two athletes in races, the four-star receiver is focused on football in college.

Bair does not even plan to run track at the next level. An LDS mission is coming up after high school and then it’s all football, all the time.

The four-star wants to focus only on one sport and not try to manage through two.

“I just want to play football in college,” Bair said.

“It’s really difficult to do both. Jumping 10-15 pounds constantly isn’t good. If you’re not focused on one or the other you’re not going to be 100 percent. Track is a really big thing and if I go into a race at 98 percent that’s a couple hundredths of a second and that’s the difference between me going to the Olympics and not. I want to be all in on what I’m doing.”