At 5 feet 8, Mike Brown of Annapolis is shorter than most hurdlers, but he's no less fearless. He started at cornerback in football.
"You can't be scared to fall," said Brown, the area's top indoor hurdler this past winter. "I've got more scars from running hurdles than from playing football."
Brown won the state outdoor title two years ago in the 110-meter high hurdles, beating his cousin, Sonny Barnes, who was favored. Unlike some of his competitors, Brown thinks the hurdles are easy.
"If you can dance then you can hurdle," he said. "It's rhythm. I picked it up quick."
Brown's coach, Mike Ballard, said speed, coordination and aggressiveness are the key ingredients in a hurdler. "And you have to be able to run within yourself, or you come up on the hurdle too fast and end up on your face."
Another area hurdling standout, Shomari Taylor of McDonogh, is 6 feet 1, 200 pounds -- more of the prototype build for a hurdler. The Yale-bound athlete gave up on the more glamorous sport of basketball to run indoor track for the first time in the winter.
He said the hardest part of hurdling is maintaining a consistency in form. "One mistake over one hurdle and your race is ruined," Taylor said.
He doesn't worry about falling. "I've fallen a few times and it's not as painful as it looks," Taylor said. "It hurts your pride more than anything."
Michael Sye, the Woodlawn athletic director who was a state indoor and outdoor champion at Woodlawn, thinks hurdling is anything but easy.
"Hurdles is a tough event," Sye said. "It's a contact sport. You get punches and elbows. And cleats scratch your hands as you clear the hurdles. It's the toughest event. It takes a lot of technique and concentration. And it's such a specialized event that not many coaches can coach it."
Woodlawn hurdler Mark McKenzie agrees with his mentor about hurdling's toll on the body.
During the Class 4A-3A state championship race at Prince George's Sports & Learning Center, he took a pounding.
He took an elbow in the chest from a competing runner at the start of the race. Then, after starting slowly, he rallied only to receive another elbow while clearing the final of five hurdles. He finished a disappointing third.
"The start is the most important thing," McKenzie said. "I got elbowed and it threw me off. They knew I was the one to beat so they came after me."
