The Day's All-Area Boys' Track & Field Athlete of the Year: NFA's Max Pierre Louis

July 08, 2021 12:00 am • Last Updated: July 09, 2021 3:55 pm

By Mike DiMauro
Day Assistant Sports Editor

Norwich Free Academy junior Max Pierre Louis was named The Day's 2021 All-Area Boys' Track & Field Athlete of the Year. He was the State Open champion in the high jump at 6 feet, 6 inches, and second that day in the triple jump (44-4.5) to score a total of 18 points for the Wildcats. (Sean D. Elliot/The Day)
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There may be a day, watching him play college football, running track & field — or perhaps both — that we say, “we knew him when.”

Put it this way: No other sport has achieved more at Norwich Free Academy over the years than track & field, thus making coach Tom Teixeira’s recent observation about Max Pierre Louis rather noteworthy:

“I've had some great athletes,” Teixeira said after the State Open, June 10 at New Britain's Willow Brook Park, “and I don't know if I've ever had anybody score 18 points.”

He alluded to Pierre Louis’ victory in the high jump (6 feet, 6 inches, worth 10 team points) and second-place finish in the triple jump (44-4.5).

Pierre Louis, who will enter his senior year in the fall, has been named The Day’s 2021 All-Area Boys' Track & Field Athlete of the Year.

But there’s so much more to Pierre Louis, who at 6-foot-5 is shaped a lot like 6 o’clock. He was instrumental in the boys’ basketball team’s second straight Eastern Connecticut Conference title this past winter, using his considerable wingspan to headline coach Chris Guisti’s confounding 3-2 zone. And his best sport yet may be football.

Pierre Louis, who has been to football camps at UConn and Toledo already, has the body type to pique interest.

“They were great experiences,” Pierre Louis said of the camps. “At first I was a little nervous. But as things went on, I was more comfortable. I’m grateful to have been invited. I know people might think all this is happening because I’m tall, but a lot of work has gone into this.”

During his last foray with football in the fall of 2019, Pierre Louis was part of a four-receiver duo with (Day Player of the Year) Andrew Cote, Damien Bleau and Nolan Molkenthin that helped NFA make the Class LL state playoffs.

Maybe the best compliment yet for Pierre Louis is that football coach Jason Bakoulis trusted him — a sophomore at the time — with what would be not only the biggest play of the year, but one of the biggest plays in NFA sports history.

It was a late-season game in November, 2019, between the ECC’s two best teams: Killingly and NFA, the last play of the game except nobody knew it. Overtime was imminent on a baby-it's-cold-outside night. But with one second left in regulation, there was the formality of one last play and half a chance at the miraculous.

Jayden Desilus, the third quarterback the Wildcats used that season, threw a fastball to Pierre Louis, who dutifully caught the ball at the 20-yard line. Ah, but it was still the 20-yard line. Twenty yards from glory.

Pierre Louis waited a moment in this moment, just long enough for Cote to come sprinting past. Cote was on the dead run now and then you knew: hook and lateral. Pierre Louis calmly flipped the ball to Cote, whose churning legs did the rest.

Touchdown, NFA.

“I just had to make sure I secured the ball,” Pierre Louis said. “We ran it every day in practice. As I saw Andrew coming at me, I thought, 'this is gonna be a touchdown.'”

Turns out that Pierre Louis’ calmness amid the miraculous belies what churns inside.

“When he competes, he's very intense. He takes it very seriously,” Teixeira said. “(The day of the State Open) he said jokingly, 'Touch my chest. I think I'm having a heart attack.' ... He's everything you'd want in an athlete.”

Pierre Louis said he’ll likely focus on football and track in the upcoming year. He is particularly looking forward to the fall.

“I don’t want to focus on anything other than helping my team win,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want to show what I can do. But it’s about us winning.”

m.dimauro@theday.com

The 6-foot-5 Max Pierre Louis helped lift the NFA boys' track team to the ECC Division I championship with a win in the high jump and followed by leaping a personal best 6-6 to take home the State Open title in that event. But there’s so much more to Pierre Louis, who also plays football and basketball at NFA. (Photo courtesy of NFA athletics)