Jahiem Spruill leads by action. And words.

Spruill, a Norwich Free Academy senior, helped the Wildcats win their fourth consecutive Eastern Connecticut Conference outdoor track and field championship this season via his performances in the high jump, long jump and triple jump.

Spruill also enjoys trash talk. Nothing vicious, mind you, but just enough needling to get the optimum performances out of his teammates.

“In practice, I try to make it fun,” Spruill said. “I want to see how far I can push someone to be better. I’m going to run my mouth until I see something out of them.”

Spruill is The Day's 2019 All-Area Boys’ Outdoor Track & Field Athlete of the Year.

“He’s pretty guarded, pretty private,” NFA coach Tom Teixeria said. “If you get to know him, he’s a goofball. He’s a very, very funny kid.

“He’s a master of trash talking. He wouldn’t say it in a mean way, but the way he practiced every day, I think the funny thing is the young guys picked it up and it sort of became the personality of that jumping group.

“I think, for the most part, that helped us succeed this year because a lot of young guys stepped up.”

Spruill’s mastery of the spoken word comes from growing up with an older brother, Jonique.

“Me and my brother grew up in a competitive household,” Spruill said. “He ran his mouth, and I’d have to say something. I’d say something and it would get him started, then he’d say something to get me started.

“Yeah, it kind of got competitive.”

Spruill decided to go out for outdoor track his freshman year just to try something new. Football and basketball were his sports up to that point.

“Practices were more fun,” Spruill said. “Football and basketball practice are fun, but not as fun. Track, you can goof around. … Once you’re done with your event, you can go cheer on your teammates.”

Spruill has the speed to be successful in track events, but he opted for the field. He believed he was a good jumper and Teixeria believed he could excel in those events.

“The coaches told me I could be one of the best,” Spruill said. “I jumped 6-foot-2 (in the high jump), so I thought, ‘Oh, alright, I could be good at this. The long jump (came easiest) because I had speed and power. The high jump took a little more time to get my approach down."

Teixeria said: “He made a very strong impression. It’s tough for freshman boys to break through in events like that because he’s going against full-grown men in a very explosive sport. But he made his mark when he was young.”

Spruill opted to give up basketball his sophomore year and compete in track in both the winter and spring. He tried every indoor and outdoor sprint event up to the 400, the hurdles and Teixeria said he had “pretty good success” at the shot put.

“He wanted to do the (CIAC) decathlon (this spring), but it was the same day as graduation,” Teixeria said.

“He’s pretty explosive and he’s pretty powerful. Not too many kids who come through are like him. You look at other high jumpers in the state, a lot of them are 6-2, 6-3, skinny, but with strong string-bean bodies. He’s 6-1, 190 (pounds). He’s just a powerful kid and that helps him.”

Teixeria had him run on the 4x200 relay team during indoor season just for fun at the Bacon Academy Invitational in January.

“He’s pretty competitive,” Teixeria said. “He’d like to go over to the sprint group (at practice) and beat them at their own game and jaw with them.

“We put him in the 4x200 for one indoor meet and they broke the school record. They were close (to the record), but when we put him on, they just got over (1 minute, 35.2 seconds).”

Spruill won the high jump (6-4) and long jump (21-10) at the ECC championships this May and was runner-up in the triple jump (44-2).

Spruill finished third in the long jump (21-10) and triple jump (44-1.25) and was fourth in the high jump (6-4) to help NFA place second at the CIAC Class LL championship. He also finished third in the high jump (6-4) at the State Open.

“My goals were to go over 23 feet (in the long jump), over 6-4 (in the high jump), and over 45 (in the triple jump),” Spruill said. “I didn’t meet those, but I can’t complain about it.

“I feel like we did good as a team. We didn’t do as good as we wanted as we lost states (NFA finished a mere 2.5 points behind Glastonbury). I feel like we could’ve won that, but we went out and did our best.”

n.griffen@theday.com

The Day's 2019 All-Area Boys' Track & Field Team

Player

of

the

Year - Jahiem Spruill (NFA)

100 meters, 200 - James Smith (Ledyard)

400 - Andrew Cote (NFA)

800 - Rhys Hammond (Stonington)

1,600, 3,200 - Sam Whittaker (East Lyme)

110 hurdles, 300 hurdles - Osaretin Osagie (NFA)

4x100 relay - Ledyard (James Smith, Travon Brown, Jaiden Bickham, Jahmik Devone)

4x400 - NFA (Tyler DeVega, Nazaiah Paul, Andrew Cote, Nathan Cote)

4x800 - East Lyme (Matt Kung, Rob Avena, Magnum Brandt, Fred Rukundo) 

Pole vault - Joey Hinckley (Stonington)

Triple jump - Ajia Brown (Fitch)

Shot put - Tyrone Mack (Montville)

Discus - Tom Joyner (Fitch)

Javelin - Adam Crawford (Ledyard)

Utility - Cameron Belton (NFA), Sam Menders (Waterford)