Local track athlete blazing though meets, records

When Davonte Neal steps onto a track it isn't to win gold medals.

The eighth-grader, who graduated from Centennial Middle School this spring, isn't even out to break records. But he does, anyway.

And some of those records are his own.

"I'm not looking to set records," the 14-year-old speedster said. "I just go out there to have fun and do the best I can. Records are just a bonus."

He ran the fastest 200 meters in the country for his age group at the Phoenix Invitational April 5-6, where he blistered the track in 22.74 seconds.

A little more than a week later broke the Kyrene Middle School conference records in 100 meters (10.95), the 200 (22.02) and the 400 (52.02) erasing the 54.12 record he set a year earlier.

His 200-meter time is the best in the country this season for 15- and 16-year-old sprinters. His 100-meter time is the third best in the country and his 400 ranks him ninth in the nation, according to the National Elite Youth Ranking System.

Neal has moved up from his age group in track to run with athletes a year or two older because he feels it offers him more competition.

"I like the challenge," Neal said. "Older guys push me and that makes me a lot better."

He said he hasn't found any animosity among those older runners who finished behind him.

"I think everyone respects what I do."

Neal realized he could run when he was a 9 and 4-foot-9, but has balanced his track career with football where he had been a 5-11, 155-pound wide receiver in Pop Warner.

"I prefer football because that's my No. 1 sport and that's what I've been doing the longest," he said.

Neal has been able to adjust between a team sport like football and more of an individual sport like track.

"I like the idea of playing a team sport like football because it brings people together who have a good time," he said. "But on the track it's just me. I don't have anyone to rely on and I have to do the job myself."

With those records in track comes local and national attention not many other athletes received at his age, but he has been able to keep things in perspective.

"There's always someone out there trying to beat me and I'd just beat myself by getting big-headed," Neal said. "I've seen it happen in the NFL, college and even right here and I don't want that to happen to me."

His attitude has been a surprise even to his father and personal coach, Luke Neal.

"Mentally," Luke Neal said, "he's handling all this really well. Better than I expected and he understands where everything fits in and is ready for the long haul over the next four years."

Neal is a "Yes sir," "No sir" type, who will be joining another Ahwatukee Foothills resident, Jim Rattay, at Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen.

Rattay, who won state football championships at Mesa High School, Desert Vista in 1999 and Phoenix Christian, will be starting his first year with the program on the Laveen campus.

"I've know Coach Rattay for a long time," Neal explained. "He knows how to prepare players and teach guys what to do, but he also helps guys with school work. That's his top priority and it's mine too. I appreciate that and that's why I decided to go with him."

Neal also plans to run track at Cesar Chavez.

Neal has obviously qualified to join the field in this season's U.S. Track and Field Junior Olympics in Omaha, Neb., but had decided to skip the event this year so he can concentrate on preparing to make the varsity football team at Chavez.

He also plans to attend some football camps at Ohio State University this summer and, "just be a kid," his father said.

Contact writer: (480) 898-7915 or at lward@ahwatukee.com