Scott Medina isn’t afraid. He would just prefer to delay what he
believes is the inevitable.
”
I am 100 percent convinced (it’s broken),
”
Medina said this week, prior to a scheduled doctor’s appointment
that will finally diagnose the pain he’s been experiencing in his
left foot
— a pain he first felt midway through the track and field
season.
”
It hurts now almost as much as it did during the season,
”
he added. Medina knows this feeling
— all too well. Just before the Tri-County Athletic League
Trials last season, the then-junior discovered his other foot — the
right one — was broken, and that he would be sidelined for the
remainder of the season, including the TCAL Championships, the
Central Coast Section Championships, as w
ell as the state competition.
”
Right when it mattered,
”
he said.
”
I wanted to [run], but if I shattered it, it wouldn’t have been
worth the risk. I still had one more year.
”
And that’s only where the story begins surrounding Medina’s
senior campaign.
HOLLISTER
Scott Medina isn’t afraid. He would just prefer to delay what he believes is the inevitable.
“I am 100 percent convinced (it’s broken),” Medina said this week, prior to a scheduled doctor’s appointment that will finally diagnose the pain he’s been experiencing in his left foot — a pain he first felt midway through the track and field season.
“It hurts now almost as much as it did during the season,” he added.
Medina knows this feeling — all too well. Just before the Tri-County Athletic League Trials last season, the then-junior discovered his other foot — the right one — was broken, and that he would be sidelined for the remainder of the season, including the TCAL Championships, the Central Coast Section Championships, as well as the state competition.
“Right when it mattered,” he said. “I wanted to [run], but if I shattered it, it wouldn’t have been worth the risk. I still had one more year.”
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And that’s only where the story begins surrounding Medina’s senior campaign, which saw the recent San Benito High graduate come back from last season’s bad break to become a three-time TCAL champ, a two-time CCS champ and a two-event state qualifier, all the while battling though the pain and discomfort of a nagging, previously broken right foot, a bothersome left hamstring, as well as a perceived broken left foot — the irritating trifecta of track injuries.
It’s why Medina, who will attend Hartnell College in Salinas — with the goal of eventually becoming a decathlete — was named the Free Lance/Pinnacle’s Most Outstanding Male Athlete of the Spring.
“We knew it was possible,” San Benito boys’ track coach Iran White said of Medina’s comeback season, “but he still had to go out there and do it. He worked really hard to get back into shape and become the athlete that he is.
“He’s got a bright future ahead of him in this sport.”
Medina’s legacy might not be what titles he earned this past season, each impressively acquired while experiencing some bout of agonizing adversity, but the amount of times his name will pop up on area record books. After all, the Hartnell-bound trackster set or broke 13 records this season — whether they be school records of others, school records of his own, meet records or all three — in the 300-meter hurdles, high jump, or as a member of either the 4×100, 4×400 or 800-meter sprint medley relay teams.
“My goal was to get a school record in all of my events,” Medina said. “I got all of them but the high jump, but took some others in the process.”
Yet, take the high jump, for instance. Although Medina fell short of breaking the San Benito High record of 6-08, his leap of 6-06 at the TCAL Finals exceeded the previous meet record by two inches, as well as the record at Gilroy High, where the league championships took place.
In the 300-meter hurdles, meanwhile, Medina set a new school record once during the season, then proceeded to break that school record two more times. His best mark of 37.99 seconds in the hurdles event, set at the Top 8 Track and Field Classic in Los Gatos, also broke a 14-year-old meet record.
“By the time he ran a 37, we knew he was capable of more,” said White, who felt reaching 37 seconds in the 300 hurdles would be an end-of-the-season goal for Medina, and not necessarily a middle-of-the-season goal like it turned out to be.
“He did what it took to get there,” he said.
Also part of the 4×100, along with Jason Roascio, Michael Bocksnick and David Kret, which set a school record in 43.09 at TCALs; as well as the 800-meter sprint medley relay with Bocksnick, Zack Nitzel and Roascio, which ran a 1:33.97 at Arcadia to break a CCS record; and the 4×400, along with Taylor Lothman, Roascio and Kret, which set a school-record time in 3:19.88 at Arcadia, Medina’s name will be forever peppered throughout the record books, or at least until someone can run faster or jump higher.
“Last year, he ran on the broken foot for a while, before we knew it was broken,” White said. “Seeing what he did last year and how well he dealt with the pain and stuff, I wasn’t too surprised this year.
“That’s the kind of kid he is. He puts in all the work and he doesn’t want to give it up.”
Knowing what he knew about his foot this year, Medina nevertheless ran through the pain and, for several weeks, kept the news of the injury to himself.
It hindered him some, but not much. He fell short of advancing to state in the high jump after recording a 6-01 at CCS, but bounced back later in the day to take first in the 300 hurdles as well as run the third leg of the first-place 4×400 relay.
“I think I felt it halfway through the season, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get pulled again,” said Medina, who eventually notified White of the injury.
While a broken right foot sidelined him for the tail end of his junior season, partly so he wouldn’t do further damage, there was nothing that was going to keep Medina from running during his senior season — not even the news of yet another broken foot.
“Senior year’s a big year,” he said.
“I was kind of used to how the pain felt from last year, so it was just, ‘Go through it,'” he later added.
And the memories of last season were still fresh. Medina was on crutches, and later a walking boot, for the better part of four months last year. When he was healed he began to train again, first walking, then jogging. Like most athletes, though, he then began pushing it a little too much.
“I was going crazy not being able to run fast,” said Medina, who felt he wasn’t 100 percent track-ready until some three months after his injury had supposedly healed.
Experiencing the same exact pain in the same exact spot this season, just on the opposite foot, may have slowed Medina slightly, but it didn’t prevent him from perhaps exceeding expectations and delivering upon a record-setting season.
Not by a long shot.
“It was important, just kind of knowing that I had nothing else left. It was all or nothing this year,” Medina said. “I had to go for it.”
