When Mayfield, Ohio senior Andy Isabella lined up in the blocks at the NEOITC Buckeye Division Meet on January 28, his personal record for the 60m was a quick but not blazing 7 seconds flat. After the gunshot, Isabella made it to the other side of the straightaway in a nation-leading time of 6.72. The mark broke the previous US #1 by six-hundredths of a second and set the All-Time Ohio State High School Record.
The time stood atop the national leaderboard for about a week and a half before Banneker, Ga. 55m nation-leader Ryan Clark nipped it this past weekend with a 6.68. Isabella will get a shot to take the top spot back this Thursday at the third meet in the NEOITC Buckeye Division series.
"[Losing the US #1] doesn't really [bother] me," Isabella said. "It just gives me more motivation to be better and it will make me even work harder than I do right now. So I think it's a good thing because I love competition. I love competing to be the best."
The five-foot-nine, 180-pound prospect is accustomed to coming in hot as the underdog.
Isabella has broken 11 seconds for 100m at exactly five meets. He's only run under 23 seconds for 200m once. Last spring, he was the first Mayfield student-athlete to qualify for the Ohio State Outdoor Track & Field Championship in 20 years. He ran 10.87 to place 11th in the preliminary round and did not advance to the finals.
Who is this kid, anyway?
Probably the last to realize that he was the fastest prep in the nation.
"I was driving home from school the next day and I picked up my phone and my dad texted me, 'Congratulations, you ran the top time,'" Isabella said. "And I was like, 'no way.'"
Andy Isabella with his parents.
Isabella didn't believe it until his father texted him a photo of his name atop the MileSplit Boys 60m National Leaderboard.
The 2014-2015 season is the first that Isabella has even stepped on an indoor track since 2012. As a freshman, his best was a 7.37.
What spurred the drastic improvement?
Passion. Dedication. A little bit of luck, a lot of sweat and the desire to prove some people wrong.
"Usually I'm not the top guy," he said. "Usually I'm the underdog guy coming in and I have to prove myself. I think usually when people see me, they don't think I'm fast at all."
Isabella's first love is football, which is the sport for which he recently signed a National Letter of Intent committing to the University of Massachusetts. As a running back, he led Mayfield to the state semi-finals this fall with 27 touchdowns and over 1,700 running yards over the course of the season.
Isabella's raw speed, which he is still developing on the track, has been key to his success on the gridiron. He clocked 4.39 for the 40m at a Nike Sparq camp last June.
"You just gotta get the ball in the kid's hands," said Mayfield head football coach Larry Pinto. "With his type of speed, you just want to get the ball any way you can. Once he gets the ball, at any given time he could score a touchdown. He's just that explosive.
"Andy has pro speed and I even would tell the newspaper, 'he almost has - in high school - a cartoon speed. It's pretty fast."
With his recent national success on the track, Isabella hopes to be a dual athlete and see just how fast he can go at U-Mass.
Andy Isabella committed to play football for the University of Massachusetts. He hopes to continue his track career as a dual sport athlete in college.
Andy Isabella's Indoor Track Training Log
Monday: Rug Pulls - "He has me carrying the heaviest person. One person is standing on a rug and they have sweatpants and they put the sweatpants around the person's body and they take 5 drive steps and then pop back up. Four sets of five and it's a 30-yard run, five 30-yard striders."
Tuesday: "We practice starts. After every practice, we do push-ups, sit-ups and dips; sets of 5 reps with a 4 count up and 4 count down."
Wednesday: Optional day, individual work on specialty events - "You can work out on hurdle stuff or jumps... [I usually] jog around and do some starts. I'm trying long jump and it's not going very well [laughs]."
Thursday: "We do blocks again and striders and every other week we have a meet"
Friday: "Hard day and do striders and light jogging, backwards runs"
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Optional day
Isabella also supplements his track work with strength training in the weight room.
"I love running," Isabella said. "I like it a lot and hopefully, they'll give me the opportunity to run."
But the senior hasn't always loved the journey.
"It used to be, every time I ran a race, I'd be disappointed with my time even if I ran my best time," he said. "I ran my best time at state but didn't make the finals."
The perfectionist logged tough hours in the weight room and on the training circuit over the summer to prepare for his senior football season. But the anxiety of expectations seemed to wear him down into just a so-so player during his first few games, until Pinto took him aside and told him to just... play.
Mayfield head track coach Steve Canfield and assistant sprint coach Al Benz used the same strategy to transition Isabella from an anxious, tense outdoor track season to a more relaxed, successful winter track season.
"I think it's important for kids to have fun when they're training because sometimes, training can be difficult," Benz said. "So you have to inject a fair degree of fun into the thing. I think he's accepted that and he's enjoying it more. I know that after his races, he smiles, he's happy. Last year, that never would have happened. He'd didn't say a word last year."
The key to carrying over this success into the outdoor season is discovering and utilizing the third gear, according to Benz. Isabella will be switching out his comfort zone in the 60m to the longer 100m.
"[It's] getting used to the idea of staying relaxed and running smoothly and learning what third gear is about," Benz said. "To understand, 'what is third gear? What is that one extra gear?' The last 25 to 30 meters of 100, you gotta have that third gear. That's where he broke down last year because I don't think he understood that concept and as a result, there were people beating him in the last 30 meters."
Isabella's 60m nation leader came at exactly the right time - about a week before National Signing Day, when he had yet to commit to a college program. The flurry of attention that he has received in the past weeks is more than he could ever have previously imagined.
Andy Isabella is the oldest of seven siblings. "I think it's fun being the oldest," he said. "I try to set the best example as I can for them. It's never a dull moment, you can never be bored! I want to show them that anything's possible and they can do anything."
"All these coaches come to you and tell you how great you are and then three months later, you never hear from them," Isabella said. "And you're sitting there on the couch one day, wondering, 'is this all worth it? Is everything I've done gonna pay off?'
"You've just gotta trust and believe in God and everything will work out in the end. It's always been my dream since I was a freshman, I wanted to play Division I football. No one believed me at all and there were definitely some times when I doubted myself, like, 'is it really gonna happen?'
"But at the end of the day, it's what I really want to do and I can't wait to pursue my dream."
Part of that dream could happen as soon as Thursday, when Isabella hits the track again in an attempt to take back his No. 1 spot on the national leaderboard.
But don't place your wagers on him. He operates better as the underdog.
