By Jay Carroll
Staff Writer

As kids, everyone played football in the front yard, basketball in a driveway and raced bikes around the neighborhood. While New Tech High@Coppell senior Brantley Young used to partake in all of these activities, he also took a fond interest in running.

“I started running at age 7,” Young said, “And over the years I started to love it and it just became my thing.”

Young would run to and from Wilson Elementary School almost every day. He started running when he saw his dad running and thought he would give it a try. In third grade, Young participated in his first race; it was a small 1K (0.625 miles) road race in Coppell.

“I ran with my dad and I finished second overall, it really boosted my confidence and made me want to keep running,” Young said.

Young has competed in many races over the years, but not only on the road, he became a very large part of the Coppell High School’s cross country team. He was elected as a team captain for the 2012 season and has run varsity since sophomore year.

Young has become the person and the athlete he is today because of influences from his parents and his coaches.

“My coaches have taught me leadership,” Young said. “They have taught me not to back down and how to stay focused and because of them I have been able to slowly excel and do a lot better than I thought I could.”

Coppell High School cross country and track coach Roxanne Farris thinks the smaller campus will benefit Young at DBU.

“DBU will be good for Brantley because it is a smaller campus and they are a tight knit team like we are here,” Farris said. “He has a great work ethic and was at practice everyday, even when we told him to take a day off he didn’t because he wanted to be out there for every meet and practice setting a good example.”

While his parents are not coaches, they have provided much needed support for Young in, giving him healthy food, moral support and tough love at time.

“I have provided good food for him, he likes a healthy diet and I have supported him through words of encouragement,” mother Lisa Young said.

While Mrs. Young has taken the supportive role for Young’s running career, Matt Young, Brantley’s father, has taken the road of tough love.

“The way we have supported Brantley is that we both complimented each other,” Mr. Young said. “While Lisa is more of the nurturing, mine is more of the tough love at times and other times the accountability of his goals and what he has wanted to do.”

While Young did not always win races or put up a strong performance in every race, his parents believed that he and his passion for running would take him as far as it has today.

When Brantley was about 7, his mom caught him putting something into his running shoes, when he was asked what they were Brantley didn’t say anything.

“He had all of these little pieces of paper folded up and on the little pieces of paper it said, ‘Never, never quit,’ and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’” Mrs. Young said. “All of these little saying that I do not even know where he got them from.”

Young would put the notes in the bottom of his shoes before he would go running to school every running day.

This passion for running that has fueled Young throughout his career has led to him committing to Dallas Baptist University for running in the fall. While he received many offers in the last year or so, there were not many colleges interested in Young when he first signed up for a recruiting service, NCSA.

“The site basically gave my name out to colleges,” Young said. “And because of that site I was recruited by schools from all around the country. At first I was just looking for the big names and they were not coming at first because I was only a sophomore.”

While he did receive interest from some big name schools at the beginning of his senior year, one school in particular stuck out to him, Dallas Baptist.

“I just looked at what a school could give back to me,” Young said. “And everything about Dallas Baptist checked out, it’s a small school, a Christian school, and I would be able to run on the team my freshmen year.”

Young’s passion for running has taken him so far, and he hopes to take he can continue his running success at DBU.

Brantley Young strides towards college career from KCBY-TV on Vimeo.