Jared CohenIt is hard to be versatile when it comes to track.
Athletes have their specialties whether it is speed or endurance, vertical or strength. It is rare to find the athletes that can dabble in a little of all of it and succeed. However, North Canyon has a member of their girls track and field team who is doing just that.
Senior Symone Wright-Flowers has flown somewhat under the radar the last couple of years at North Canyon as she has been teammates with multiple-event state champion Jasmine Stauffacher-Gray who is now at UCLA as well as fellow senior Drianna Mustin who is committed to Colorado. Competing and training with two of the best the state has seen over the last couple of years is now putting her in a position where she is improving and standing out on her own.
During her senior track season, Wright-Flowers has competed in every sprint event as well at the 800 meters. She has had a personal best team in each event. In the middle of March her coaching staff allowed her to take a crack at the jumping events where she qualified for state in long jump and finished second in high-jump the first time she had ever competed in the event. And while she is at it, she is putting the two skills together and running the hurdles for the first time now too.
It is versatility at it’s finest and it’s catching the attention of schools at the next level.
“Last week, I did my first heptathalon just because I had already did it all and I am just starting to learn hurdles and high jump,” Wright-Flowers told Sports360AZ. “So I told a few of the college coaches that I had been talking to and they were really pleased to hear that. They would say ‘we’ve been looking for heptathletes,’ so I just think it really helps with my versatility.”
“She’s a great athlete so she’s been able to do anything that we’ve put her in so far,” explained North Canyon track coach Airabin Justin. “There’s a lot of different things that she’s done and it definitely will help her get to the next level.”
For Wright-Flowers, it has just been about confidence and focusing on herself instead of who she is racing against. She explained that colleges look at times and not necessarily what places you’ve finished in. She has taken that notion to heart and it’s taking her times to speeds she has not seen from herself.
“The college coaches have given me some times that I have been aiming for so it’s really about me buckling down and competing against myself more than the other people out on the track,” mentioned Wright-Flowers.
Before she decided to devote her life and future to track, Wright-Flowers was a cheerleader. A lot of times you hear of athletes taking skills and intangibles from one sport and have help them improve in another. Wright-Flowers says her reason for being able to catch on to high jump so quickly is because of her experiences with flipping and stunting from when she was a cheerleader. She is a natural and already just a few inches shy of the girls high jump record at North Canyon.
“Doing back ham springs and back flips and things like that help with back flexibility and jumps all the time so I think it’s helped me get over the bar and I was able to do my thing,” she said.
At the rate she is going, there will be many cheering for her in the present and future with the season she is displaying for her senior year on the track.
