'It was wild': Garfield's Conner Hunt savors golden state debut

COLUMBUS — Conner Hunt's state debut was spectacular.

No question about it.

The lone competitor in the seated 800, the Garfield freshman could have coasted to his first title.

Instead, Hunt hurtled his way to not just a gold medal, but a personal record (2:15.96), with a race that was brilliant from the start.

"Well, normally in my 800, normally I get wore out the first thing," Hunt said. "So I was trying to just pace myself and not go too hard, but not go too easy, and then hope I get a really good start, which I did."

There were audible gasps from the audience as Hunt hit the homestretch.

For good reason.

He was, for lack of a better word, flying.

"It was wild," Hunt said. "I went over on the one side by all the crowd and everybody started to go insane. It was really a good experience the whole time."

The good experiences kept adding up as the Garfield freshman left his first state meet with three gold medals.

A couple of hours after he was the lone competitor in the seated 800, he faced his first competition in the 400.

G-Men coach Matt Pfleger said that competition, specifically from Midview senior Max Carter, really helped push Hunt to a stellar championship time of 1:03.19.

"We were standing over here right at the 200 start," Pfleger said. "That kid was pretty close and then he just kind of kept on getting further and further away from them, so it was kind of nice to have somebody else right there with him at the start. I think that really helped him."

The 100 was competitive as well, including four sub-25 finishers, with Hunt again edging Carter for his third title, 16.68-18.43.

"It's definitely wild," Hunt said. "You know, if you think you're not going to do good, then you're not going to do good, and you have to have a positive mindset coming into the events or else you're not going to do as well as you think you're going to do."

Making Hunt's achievement wilder is the fact that Garfield doesn't have a track. Not yet, anyway, with one currently being built surrounding the practice football field.

"As a freshman without a track, the amount of times that he's been in his racing chair racing and practicing on a track is however many track meets we've had," Pfleger said. "So it's impressive to know just without any practices and hitting the weight room, he's been able to do this, so it should be really exciting next year to see what he does."

While it's tantalizing to think about what awaits Hunt in the years to come, he was simply savoring the experience Saturday of his first high school state meet, as well as the opportunity to compete.

"To me, it just shows that, no matter if you have a disability or not, you can still do stuff," Hunt said. "Don't put yourself down. Really, you can do stuff that others can't do. Other people can do what you can't do. Just all around, do what you can."