Bishop Montgomery’s Haynes Discovers Her Featured Events : Track and field: Standout will compete in 300-meter hurdles and long jump at state meet.

A month ago, Nicole Haynes of Bishop Montgomery High had never run the 300-meter hurdles. But she always thought it would be fun.

She was right.

Friday night, Haynes will settle into the starting blocks at Cerritos College as the state meet’s fourth-seeded runner in the 300 hurdles, despite the fact she has competed in the event only five times.

Haynes, a junior, will also compete in the long jump at the two-day meet, an unusual double for an athlete.

Haynes did not exactly go from track and field novice to state-meet qualifier in a month, but, as a coach at last week’s Southern Section Masters meet said, “She came out of nowhere in the hurdles, no one had heard of her before the CIF finals.”

That’s not exactly true either. Haynes, 16, was a well-known age-group competitor in the South Bay for years, but it was not until this year that she discovered her best events. In the past, it seemed Haynes could compete in about anything she wanted.

She was a standout soccer player at Bishop Montgomery her first two years in high school. Last year at the Southern Section 2-A Division track final, Haynes finished second in the 400 meters, fourth in the 200, fourth in the 100 and her 400 relay team was seventh.

Yet she failed to qualify for the Masters meet in any event.

Knowing that she had not competed to her potential, Haynes heard about a heptathlon competition the next day at Mt. San Antonio College and decided to enter. The heptathlon consists of the javelin, shotput, 200, 800, high jump, 100 hurdles and long jump.

She had never tried the javelin, shotput, 100 hurdles or long jump, but Haynes won the competition anyway.

“It was pretty funny, especially throwing the javelin, I had never picked one up before,” said Haynes, who is the first girl in six years from Bishop Montgomery to make the state meet. “But I really liked the long jump.”

Bishop Montgomery Coach Willie Dawson said: “It did not surprise me about the heptathlon. I always knew she was a multi-event competitor. What shocked me was that she long jumped over 17 feet, a school record, in her first try.”

Haynes had found her specialty. Dawson had his standout athlete concentrate on the long jump this season and she immediately became one of the best jumpers in the state with a personal best of 18 feet 9 1/4 inches. She is seeded fifth for the state meet. Walnut’s Juliana Yendork is the state’s top jumper at 20-4 1/4.

Dawson knew Haynes was capable of qualifying for the state meet in a second event. The question was which one.

“Obviously, Nicole is a very gifted athlete,” Dawson said. “When I saw her in the eighth grade running with the Carson Cobras and it became known that she would be going to Bishop, I was happy, she was a can’t-wait-to-get-her type of athlete. She holds the school record in (five events) and could probably hold the record in every event on the track, except for distance, and she could probably do that if she put her mind to it.”

There’s not much Haynes seems incapable of doing if she puts her mind to it. She has a 3.6 grade-point average and was recently elected student body president.

Haynes considered running the 300 hurdles this season instead of the 400, which she had run for eight years.

“I was tired of the 400, I hated that last 100,” she said. “So I figured the 300 hurdles was one less 100 and I begged my coach to try it.”

Haynes ran 46.0 in her first try at the hurdles, another first-attempt school record, a common occurrence for her.

“At that point I knew it was her second event,” Dawson said.

After that first dual meet, Haynes became the Mission League champion in the event, the 2-A Division champion, and now, after running 44.10 at the Masters meet, a contender to win the state title.

“Every time she runs it, she improves a half-second or so, I think she can go No. 1 or No. 2, depending on how much she improves,” Dawson said.

“I’m shooting for the low 43s,” said Haynes, who has a sore left ankle. “But I haven’t been training that much, so we’ll see.”

The top-seeded runner in the 300 hurdles is Tanya Smith of Cordova, who has run 43.16.

Haynes doesn’t sound too nervous, but her mother makes up for her.

“It’s nerve-racking to watch her compete,” Diana Haynes said. “But she’s real cool about it.”

This summer Haynes, who is a Canadian citizen, will compete in the July junior national championships in Minneapolis, where she hopes to qualify for the Canadian junior national team. Born in Toronto and of Guyanese descent, Haynes moved to the United States in 1981.

After her senior year, Haynes wants to compete in the heptathlon on the collegiate level. Her first choice is Stanford, but she also has been recruited by USC and UC Irvine. Suspiciously absent in the recruiting race is UCLA, where Haynes’ favorite athlete, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, went and where her brother Brian, a soccer and track standout at Bishop Montgomery, is a student.

Haynes will certainly qualify academically for all those schools. An aspiring sports medicine physician, Haynes is taking a full load of honors classes, including physics, third-year French and trigonometry/pre-calculus.

On the track, her full load consists of the 300 hurdles and the long jump, where she has already made the honor roll and is shooting to become the class of the state.