Grayson County High School senior Houston Brooks will run cross country and track at Centre College next year.
Brooks made the decision official during a ceremony at the high school on Monday evening.
“I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go all summer,” he told K105. “Then I went to the Governor’s Scholar Program, and I was on the campus for five weeks, and I was like ‘I like this,’ so this is what I’m going to go with.”
While growing up, Brooks would participate in nearly every sport, but transitioned to become a full-time runner once he went to high school.
“I was the only (one of my friends) running cross-country and track, so it was a big risk for me in high school when I decided to step away from (basketball and baseball) and just go all in on running. My friends still showed up to meets, asked me how my running’s going, it just means a lot and keeps me going.”
There was a massive crowd in attendance at the signing as he made sure to invite anyone and everyone who had an impact on his journey to this point. He gives a lot of credit to his parents, Keith and Karen, for reaching the point that he’s at now.
“With running, there are a lot of times you see parents that don’t go to every meet,” he added. “I don’t know that they’ve ever missed a meet. My parents are at almost every practice too, before I started to drive.”
While most athletic competitions happen at night, cross country especially has some meets that begin before 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. This forced him to train before most people even woke up, and each time, his parents were with him.
“Before I started driving, and even now that I do drive, they’ll come to the track with me at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes we might flip on the lights on the track when we’re not supposed to, and we’ll get in a workout before most people are even out of bed.”
His dad, Keith, spoke to the group before the event and wanted to echo what Norman Chaffins said during his son Greyson’s signing the previous week.
“We’ve made a lot of friends through cross country and track,” Keith said. “We’re a huge proponent of athletics, you learn how to win, you learn how to lose. We have very good mentors with our coaches.”
During the college search, Houston had the opportunity to go to multiple schools, including taking visits to Vanderbilt and Bellarmine, but the conversation always reverted back to Centre.
“He went to a lot of schools,” Karen Brooks said. “He thought he wanted to do Division 1, and he could have, but Centre just had his heart when we visited there.”
Also in attendance were his high school head coaches, Anthony Miller and Matt Hayes. Both continuously mentioned the growth in leadership and also the person that the Colonels will be getting in the fall.
“Centre is very blessed to get an outstanding young man,” Hayes said. “I have been very very happy with Houston’s, not just work ethic, but I think everybody knows about that, but he has been a really good leader for us this year.”
Hayes specifically mentioned a moment earlier this track season where Houston came to him following an injury to one of his teammates and said he would fill in and run his event. That selflessness will bode well in the future.
“During your career, a coach is going to ask you to do something that you’re not 100% sure about,” Hayes added. “The willingness to jump in and be flexible, but still try to hold yourself to a high standard, will help him not only at Centre, but when he goes out into the workforce and tries to help this community.”
Miller recollected a moment from this past cross country season where Houston missed out on a school record 5K time by mere hundredths of a second. Those were the moments, though, that saw all the hard work begin to pay off.
“He’s always had a goal to be the best runner, and he didn’t shy from running with our top runners through the years,” Miller said. “After Peyton (Nash) graduated, he took the leadership role and continued to improve.”
Centre is a Division III school located in Danville, Kentucky. They compete in the Southern Athletic Association and are coached by Lisa Owens.
Owens’ squads have won over 20 conference championships, and she’s won nearly 40 coach of the year recognitions from different outlets.
By Sam Gormley, Play-By-Play Announcer/Local Sports
Reach Sam at sam@k105.com
