THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Central High School Athletics

Tyman Smart is a little guy. Yes, we all know about the old adage about the size of fight in the dog. And yes, that certainly fits when watching Smart powering up a hill with intense focus, leading a cross country race. The Central senior is all about heart and try, and dedication and focus. Way back in his freshman year, he was one of the guys trudging along at the back of the back. He hated that view and wanted so badly to be running up front. Cross country is one of those great sports where results are based on dedication and hard work. Yep, all sports are, but cross country results and that stopwatch, which can be evil or encouraging, depending on how many ticks it takes to finish, are based on the amount of work a runner puts in. Way back in his freshman year, running on the junior varsity, Smart's motivation started to grow. "I watched the varsity race and the kid who won it was on our team. He ran a 16:34, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I wonder if I'll ever to be that fast?' " Smart said. The answer is yes, even faster. That same JV race, after finishing fourth, Smart watched the top three runners walking away with smiles, admiring their medals. "All I thought about was I want a medal. I just started running, motivated with a chip on my shoulder," he said. Tyman Smart is living the dream, a special dream that was hatched when he was that tiny, not too fleet-footed freshman. Living the dream are his words, not mine. "It's just crazy I never really thought I'd be this fast," he said with a super modest smile. "As a freshman, I was 4-foot-10, 70 pounds, and I was like, 'I'm never going to run that fast.' " A few weeks ago at the Anna Banana Invitational, Smart set a fast pace for his teammate David Cardenas, who went on to win the race. The pace and a maniacal hill to start the second mile took a toll on Smart, but he still finished third in a brisk time of 16:05.64 in the 5K. On Friday at the Delta Invitational, Smart finished second with a time of 15:40. He's now running at the front and winning medals. He's living the dream. As that dinky freshman with more heart than talent, Smart set his mind to that dream. He wanted to be faster, he wanted to move up, he wanted to change his view from the back to the front. "I decided I want to be good at this thing, so I put my grind to it," he said. That is an awesome description: "Put my grind to it." There's no better way to say it. That's what it takes to improve. Before he started grinding, Smart searched for his sport. There was baseball and soccer and even football, where he went out for the seventh-grade team, but at 65 pounds, they gave him the boot for being too small. So he drifted into running, where his grind would mold his future. He summed up what is great about running on the cross-country team. "Anyone can do it, anyone can get faster if they put the work into it." Precisely. With running sports, the stopwatch is the gauge. Sure, everyone dreams of winning, but the real goal is to get better, to show improvement. "Your times will reflect how hard you train how much you do things right," he said. Central coach Ted Leblow is always pushing, always encouraging. The Central team T-shirts have the logo "No Excuses!" etched on them. Smart never made excuses as he labored through his freshman year. Leblow preaches improvement as the goal. Work hard and times improve. Work harder, times improve more. Simple but not easy. Smart is one of the kids Leblow has enjoyed watching grind. "Tyman kinda gets overlooked sometimes but he's improved so much. His freshman year, he was running 20 minutes and now he's up at the front. "It's been crazy to watch how much Tyman has improved." Both coach and runner, like to use the word "crazy," because it's a bit crazy to watch a runner improve that much. Not just a minute here or there, but three to four minutes of improvement — that is crazy. As a smaller runner who grinds away, Smart is a little more suited for the two-mile or even longer, and he even ran a half marathon this summer. "He ran a (1 hour, 12 minutes), which is really good for a high school kid," Leblow said. Smart doesn't plan to let up on his grind anytime soon. That's because he's living the dream, and here are his words. "It's just crazy, because, it's almost like …" he said, then paused and smiled. He let his thoughts marinate for a few seconds. "This is going to sound super cheesy, but it's almost like I'm living in a dream that I had as a freshman." Then the smile vanished and that grind seem to appear in his eyes. "But it's not over yet." Tyman Smart is just a little guy who keeps grinding and keeps on dreaming.

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Central High School Athletics

CENTRAL'S SMART IS FULL OF FIGHT, HEART AND DREAMS

DALE SHRULL

The Daily Sentinel | 10/7/2018

PHOTO CREDIT: Tamie Meck