By Blake Chadwick
Fresh off a top 20 finish a season ago at the Class 4A state championships, Luke Wylie is poised and hungry for more.
“Luke Wylie is a perfect example of the process it takes to be successful,” head coach Jaedyn Showman said. “He shows up to every practice willing to do the ëxtra mile. He does not take shortcuts and often asks if he can do more. Luke puts the work in for himself, not for the attention and glory.”
Wylie has stamped himself as a hard worker, and now, entering his sixth year running cross country, he has plans to do even more.
“Ever since I was young, I was always competitive, and in people’s eyes, I was reaching for the stars, but I knew that with hard work, I could reach my goals,” Wylie said. “Even in my young age, I knew that with my background and genetics that I would have to fight for every inch that I could get. So now that I have grown and I am succeeding and getting opportunities to do things, it is just so unreal, and I don’t even know if it was me who made it happen.”
Last season, Wylie was named a first-team all-league runner after his third-place finish at the league meet and 19th-place finish at state. Now, he wants to finish his career even better.
“My personal goal for this year’s season is to beat my school’s men’s 5k record, which is at a time of 16:38, as well as winning our league meet individually,” Wylie said. “For my team, I like to set goals high as a way of pushing my team, so the goal for this year is the win our league meet, which would make Wellington the AVCTL league champion for four years running.”
