And this is why you shouldn’t freak out when a player runs a 40-yard dash in “only” 4.67 seconds, as Kalon Barnes did at a Houston combine last year.
First of all, a 4.67-second 40 is fast for a high school recruit. And second, that recruit is not done developing.
Barnes set the national high school record in the 100-meter dash as the Texas state championships on Saturday, clocking in at a blazing 10.05 seconds. The previous mark, set by a number of runners, most recently in 2011, was 10.15.
That time would have placed Barnes seventh at the 2016 Rio Olympics, 0.14 seconds off the medal stand and 0.23 seconds behind gold medal winner Usain Bolt.
Repeat: A high school senior was less than a quarter of a second behind the fastest sprinter in the history of sprinting.
A wide receiver from Silsbee, Texas, Barnes was a 3-star recruit who signed with Baylor in December.
“Kalon brings additional speed to an already fast class,” Bears head coach Matt Rhule said in December. “He’s a really special athlete, a special football player. He was one of the first guys that committed to us and really kind of helped whole #BFast thing get up and running.”