Matt Boling, the Outlier of Outliers

The fall semester has now begun at the University of Georgia, located in the charming town of Athens. I surmise that each of the 5,750 students in the present freshman class (largest in UGA history) has high hopes, dreams and aspirations. This is right and proper, but I am keeping a close eye on a certain Bulldog—Matthew Boling, who recently graduated from Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston. Many others are doing the same.

Boling and his fraternal twin brother Michael were born on June 20, 1990. Their father, an oil-and-gas attorney with degrees from DePauw and SMU, and his wife, do not pretend to have any special athletic ability of their own. Michael, 2019 valedictorian at Strake Jesuit, won the District 23-6A pole vault title with a height of 4.1 meters. A mechanical engineering major at nearby Georgia Tech, he is not the focus of this article.

Two years ago, Matt Boling was merely a track & field athlete with lots of potential. These days, however, he is featured on NBC Nightly News, Sports Illustrated, CNN, ESPN and every American media outlet you care to name, plus some in Europe. He has more than 100,000 Instagram followers, and videos of his performances have gone “viral” as the kids say. Boling—6 feet tall and 160 pounds, with curly blond hair and a ruddy complexion—has done some rather impressive things in racing flats. As a junior, he won the Texas long jump championship with a leap of 7.31 meters and came in second place (0.1 second back of the winner) in the 400 meters, with a time of 46.76. His PR in the triple jump is 12.95 meters, 2.04 meters in the high jump and 20.31 seconds in the 200. Boling excels at everything to which he applies himself.

At an unusually packed Myers Stadium for the 2019 Texas Relays, he did a wind-aided 10.20 in the 100, won the long jump and anchored Strake Jesuit’s winning 4 × 400-meter relay team. Then came a regional meet in Webster on April 27 where Boling ran a 9.98 (!) in the 100. Again, a tailwind prevented that from being the fastest time ever by a high schooler. The phenom did more of the same at the state meet (also at UT’s Myers Stadium) two weeks later. He took the long jump (7.75 meters) and the 100 (a legitimate 10.13), and came from behind to win the 4 × 100-meter relay, although his team was disqualified due to a lane or baton violation. If he was not a legend already, Boling became one with the 4 × 400-meter relay. His team was in second when he got the baton for the anchor leg. DeSoto High School’s Chris Ford was the lead runner. A Texas A&M signee, he is plenty fast himself. And with a lead of almost 3 seconds, or roughly 25 meters, Ford seemed to have a safe cushion. But the stadium announcer and virtually everybody else present wondered—could Boling pull it off? He wisely did not go after Ford in a mad dash. In fact, in the first part of that counterclockwise lap around the track he did not appear to gain any ground. But he reeled the guy in and passed him near the finish line with a blistering 44.74. That, friends, is close to world-class. It drew comparisons to what Johnny “Lam” Jones of Lampasas had done as the anchor man in the 3A mile relay in 1976—coming from far behind to win. I would submit that since Boling faced much tougher competition, his triumph is even more stunning. And please do not accuse me of saying a bad word about the late and great Lam Jones, a UT track and football star of the first degree.

Track, it has been said, is the most egalitarian of sports because the clockwatch never lies. Boling, as indicated above, is of European descent. Most of the guys he faces—and beats—in these races are of African descent. Ordinarily they prevail, which makes all this so amazing, if not shocking. I hesitate to wade into the taboo subject of black athletic superiority. What a quagmire that is! People might even call me the “R” word. However, I am reminded of my friend Jerry LeVias, the former SMU Mustang. On one hand, he will insist there is no difference between the races, then he will turn around and say with a smile, “We know we are better.” Usually they are. Many times I have looked at a basketball game and beheld 10 black guys. It’s pretty much the same in football; San Francisco 49ers defensive back Richard Sherman jokes that a typical NFL game these days is like “Nigeria versus Ghana.” He said it, I didn’t.

Matt Boling does not just defeat his (mostly black) competitors, he destroys them. He wins going away. The video of him walking down Chris Ford in the 4 by 4 at the state meet—I must have watched it a dozen times—beggars belief. I cannot help wondering how these black guys like losing, and losing badly, to a European-American. Most, I think, are displeased. Oh, to know the true feelings of Lance Nathan Broome, Dorian Hewitt, Cameron Crowe, Trevion McCalla, JeVaughn Stanley, Taurean Muhammad and Emunn Parker. All black, they ran against Boling in that regional meet in Webster, knowing they had no chance to win. I expect that Boling has encountered some measure of macho bluster underneath the stands at some of the meets in which he has run.

Boling, who detests the “White Lightning” moniker, is operating in an overwhelmingly black milieu, that is for certain. But there are a few others like him—Christophe Lemaitre of France, Filippo Tortu of Italy, Ramil Guliyev of Turkey and maybe we can include Su Bingtian of China. Four-hundred-meter specialist Jeremy Wariner (also a Texan) retired three years ago. So you see, there is some diversity in big-time sprinting.

In recent weeks, I have had conversations with five guys in Texas whose privacy I respect, so I will not divulge their names. Each knows track & field inside and out. I have asked them, “How does Boling do it? Are you surprised? Is he chemically enhanced?” None of them believe he has cheated, attributing his success to that time-tested combination of talent, hard work and good coaching (a nod to Strake Jesuit’s Chad Collier). Far from naïve, they regard him as a well-raised young man who deserves the accolades coming his way.

I will tell you who is naïve: The people who are mentioning Boling in the same breath as Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt. This is foolish, and Boling—who has already gotten a taste of international competition and admits he hopes to make the U.S. Olympic team that goes to Tokyo next year—would surely concur. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is no guarantee that Boling will continue on his present upward trajectory. He is barely out of high school, and it gets harder now. He may plateau, he may suffer injuries, or he may be sidetracked in one way or another. It is also possible that the coach at Georgia, Petros Kyprianou, will use the versatile Boling to score points in too many meets of little consequence. Kyprianou led the Bulldogs to the 2018 NCAA track & field championship, but his challenge is to think “team” while helping the young Texan become a world-class sprinter, long jumper or decathlete.

Maybe Boling should have taken a page from Allyson Felix’s book. She graduated from high school in Los Angeles in 2003 and chose to forgo college eligibility by signing a pro contract with Adidas. That German company paid her an undisclosed sum and covered her expenses at the University of Southern California. Felix, coached by Bob Kersee, has won six Olympic gold medals and 11 World Championship gold medals (let’s not bother with silver and bronze). She never ran for USC. In taking this path, Felix has maximized her athletic ability, made a good living and got a diploma. Boling has received at least one such offer but turned it down. I hope the Boling family at least consulted with Kersee about this matter as it is such an important life decision.

He is now a member of a high-powered track team, and I see him posing with former UGA great Herschel Walker on the sidelines at Sanford Stadium. He looks good in black and red, as he did in the dark green of Strake Jesuit. While Boling’s future seems pretty darn rosy, there are too many cautionary tales to count. Time will tell.