Brian Herron to skip track and field season at Lakeside

Lakeside High School junior Brian Herron will not run for the Vikings track and field team this season.

MileSplit USA broke the news Jan. 23, stating that Herron will skip the upcoming high school track and field season to run unattached for his track club, Flight400, under coach Andre Oliver, who has coached the star for the past five years. Herron’s mother, Joyce, confirmed the report to The Champion.

“It’s a very different year at Lakeside,” she said. “And, I’m on the board and can’t go into [further details], but there are a lot of kids who are not running. We have absolutely no beef with the head coach. He’s a wonderful guy. He was the throw coach last year, but there are just some other issues.”

According to MileSplit, which ranks Herron No. 1 in the 2018 MileSplit50 Boys Indoor ranking, Oliver said a new coach was brought on for the upcoming spring season and Herron “didn’t feel comfortable going forward with what they had going on.”

Herron’s mother said they are hoping to work something out for the season.

“It’s still early,” she said.

Herron has been a sprinter for the Lakeside varsity track and field team since his freshman year. During freshman year, he led the Vikings to their first DeKalb County track and field title in 42 years, and they repeated as champions last season.

Herron won a silver medal his freshman year at the Class AAAAAAA state meet in the 400-meter dash, and finished second again last season in the 400 as well as in the 200-meter.

Last summer, Herron was a part of the US men’s 4×400-meter relay team that broke the world U20 record at the Pan-American U20 Championships in Trujillo, Peru. He currently holds the nation’s top 400m time of 46.43 seconds.

Herron was named the Most Outstanding Male Track Athlete in metro Atlanta by the Atlanta Track Club last summer.