Bellarmine Prep talent, competitiveness can push Jack Yearian to triple crown of state distance running

Bellarmine Prep’s cross country coaches were leaping in excitement when Jack Yearian set the state sophomore record in the 1,600 and placed second in the 4A state track and field championships.

But Yearian? Just the opposite.

“He was (angry). He went into the 1,600 thinking, ‘I’m going to win this state championship,’ ” Bellarmine Prep cross country program director Matt Ellis said.

“We were ecstatic. We were thrilled. … But in that competitive moment, he wanted to win. He didn’t care that the other kid was a senior and he was a sophomore.”

Yearian finished that race in 4 minutes, 8.5 seconds (1.18 seconds behind Eisenhower’s Drew Schreiber). That, combined with Yearian’s ninth-place finish in the 4A cross country championships last fall, fueled his drive to the top of the distance-running mountain in May when he won both the 1,600 and 3,200 titles and earned the 2015 Gatorade Washington boys track and field athlete of the year.

Yearian could join select company this year with the distance-running triple crown. Only 13 runners have won a 4A cross country title and track and field titles in the 1,600 and 3,200 in the same year (38 have done it total).

It’s not just talent for Yearian. What pushed him to the next level is his blend of competitiveness and confidence — that he said some have misconstrued for cockiness.

“I feel like I don’t try to be cocky at all, but I do feel you need to go into a race with confidence,” Yearian said. “I’m not being cocky about it, I just feel like, ‘What are you saying if you don’t think you’re going to win?’ Even if there is an ounce of you that tells you, ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ you just have to lie to yourself.”

To think he didn’t even want to run when he entered Bellarmine Prep.

He considered playing football, instead.

Yearian said his mom forced him to play a fall sport, and he certainly didn’t want to run.

“She wanted me to do it just to get to know people, so honestly, right before, I was like, ‘I’m playing freshman football. I do not want to run,’ ” Yearian said. “I was like that until the very last day and then I was like, ‘There is no way I’m playing freshman football. I’m way too small. I’m just going to get destroyed.’ ”

His father, Phil Yearian, placed second in the 1981 1A cross country championships for Port Townsend before attending the University of Portland. But it wasn’t until Jack Yearian was called up to varsity his freshman year, following some injuries, that he really embraced running.

He ended up being Bellarmine’s top finisher at the cross country championships later that year, placing 88th.

“We pulled him up to varsity for the Hole in the Wall Invitational and I was like, ‘Are you ready to go today?’ ” Bellarmine Prep boys cross country coach Keith Wren said. “And he said, ‘Watch what I do today.’ And from there it just progressed.”

“That’s when I kind of realized what I had,” Yearian said. “I finished first on my team at state and I was like, ‘Wow, maybe this is something I should take seriously.’ ”

He had focused on the 800 and 1,600 until last spring, when he surprised his coaches and told them he wanted to race the 3,200 at the Arcadia Invitational in California. That after he had placed third in the 800 as a sophomore at the state track and field championships.

Yearian took first in his heat in Arcadia, finishing the 3,200 in 8:58.61, despite having ran the event in a race only once prior to Arcadia.

“I was kind of just like, ‘Let’s go out and see what I can do in the two mile,’ ” Yearian said. “But after that — I was sure I wanted to go up (switching from 800 to 3,200).”

Hills, terrain and the tendency for runners to “fall asleep,” as Ellis called it, in cross country make it a different challenge compared with the 1,600 and 3,200 in track and field. It’s why so few win all three in a single school year.

It’s also why Ellis and Wren are hesitant to say their 2015 Gatorade Washington boys track and field athlete of the year is the favorite this cross country season — though it’s also because Yearian spent more time swimming than running this past summer as he rehabilitated from a structural issue in his right knee.

“Talent-wise, there’s not many I’ve had that have been better,” Wren said. “He’s as good as they come as far as that goes. He’s got great turnover. He’s real quick with his legs and he’s competitive as (heck).”

And it’s that competitiveness that has pushed him from wary freshman to potential distance-running triple-crown winner.

That was all encapsulated in one race for Ellis.

“He was at a race in Portland and it was just an eye-opener. It wasn’t ridiculously fast, but he was just out of position and a gap opened,” Ellis said. “He finished that race and he was (angry). And I knew. He finished and he was like, ‘I don’t want to even talk right now.’

“He cooled down and I was like, ‘Do you want the honest truth?’ He’s like, ‘Yes, I need the honest truth.’ I go, ‘That race was nothing physical. It was all mental. That’s what you have got to figure out. I believe you can win, everybody believes you can win — if mentally you know it.’ He’s learned that some of these races are going to be even harder than he can even imagine.”

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 10:59 PM with the headline "Bellarmine Prep talent, competitiveness can push Jack Yearian to triple crown of state distance running."