By Phil Murphy
DigitalSports.comCentreville senior track sensation
Brittni Finch had just finished a short workout at the Wildcats' Trussell Stadium Friday afternoon. She sported an inside-out sweatshirt permanently borrowed from former Lee standout and friend
Sean Holston, who now runs for Florida State University.
The
Wildcat phenom, originally from Texas, has been an area track-and-field
icon since making a splash at both the Northern Region indoor and
outdoor championship meets as a freshman. Now Finch, entering her senior season at Centreville, says she's ready to reach new heights.
"It has been fun for me to get out there and be ... a role model," said Finch, who was simultaneously pensive and confident as she spoke. "And to be someone's role model means that I have to come out here and not only make myself better, but people on the team are following me and looking up to me. I have always wanted to be someone to kind of change the world and I guess you could say that, through track, being here, for some people's lives, maybe I did have a positive influence."
At those 2005 Northern Region indoor track championships, Finch won the long jump and finished third in the 55-meter race. At the outdoor championships exactly three months later, she again won the long jump while taking second in the 100-meter.
Finch has only bolstered her resume since then, smiling contagiously as she described her favorite moment as an elite high school athlete.
"Of course it was breaking the record my sophomore year," Finch said. "It still amazes me as much as it amazed everyone the day it happened. I was dead tired and I had all kinds of coaches giving me advice, because I guess they wanted to see me do it.
"I hold onto that moment every single day and it is a moment I can keep re-living ... It reminds me that at any given point, even if you are dead tired, there is still hope. There is still a chance to do something, and I did it."
That record -- that moment -- is the all-time state long jump record of 19 feet, 10.25 inches which Finch broke by over two inches at the 2006 Virginia AAA state indoor meet as a sophomore. The jump was an inch and a half shy of the national record for sophomores set by
Shana Woods of Long Beach, Ca. in 2004.
A week after the record-setting leap, Finch finished second at the Nike Indoor Nationals in Landover, MD with a jump of 18 feet, 7.25 inches. Only one sophomore was within two and a half
feet of that mark.
Last year as a junior, she repeated as the AAA state indoor long jump champion (19 feet, 7.25 inches) and had the eighth best mark at the Nike Indoor Nationals. Less than month later, she won the long jump outdoors at the Allen Johnson Invitational at Lake Braddock with a jump of 19 feet, 2.25 inches. The nearest competitor was nine and a half inches behind.
Despite expecting to compete in five indoor track events this season — the 55-meter, 300-meter, 4x200, long jump and triple jump — she was quick to label the long jump as her favorite.
"I like to fly," Finch said, smiling.
With such passion and dedication, the two-time Northern Region and Virginia long jump champion feels improving on her state-record vault from two years ago is not only possible, but likely.
"It is really easy," she said. "When I [broke the state record], I really jumped 20 feet, 5 inches. I jumped far from off of the board. There wasn't too much technical practicing in long jump. A lot of it was just sprint work. I guess this year we are trying to work both of them—get marks down, and get steps together—so that this year I should definitely go over 20 feet.
"I'm confident in it. I was supposed to do it last year, but I can't say I was the most motivated. This year, I am taking it differently."
Regardless of whether the unprecedented 20-foot is jump is attainable, her career has been one the best in recent memory.
When the pit dust settles at her final high school track competition this June, Finch will still have opportunities compete at an elite level. She has received scholarship offers from a multitude of colleges with more than reputable track programs, including Clemson, Miami (Fl.) and Oklahoma, her father's alma mater. In all likelihood, though, Finch said she will follow her good friend Sean Holston to the Sunshine State.
"Miami has a hold on me and I don’t see anything else changing my mind from that," she said.
After receiving her undergraduate degree, Finch hopes to pursue a career in medicine.
"I don’t know exactly what kind of doctor I want to be," Finch said. "But anything with finding cures — anything to help — that is my position."
With aspirations to become a doctor and a love of testing the limits of physics through flight, Finch is on the brink of both occupational and athletic prominence.
The only thing that can hold her back is herself — and gravity.
Career Bests55-meter dash: 7.22 sec
60-meter dash: 7.98 sec
100-meter dash: 12.33 sec
200-meter dash: 24.89 sec
Long jump: 19 ft, 10.25 in (Va. indoor state record)
Triple jump: 38 ft, 4.25 in
**Complete video interview with Brittni Finch available at Girls Indoor Track Sports Central
