In the three years since he took up track and field, Juelz Sewell has competed in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter events. Of the three, the 400 is the 9-year-old Towson resident’s favorite.
Why? “I have a lot of energy, and I never get tired,” he said.
That was a revelation to Rafael Cooper, who coaches the Forever Strong Elite Track Club of which Sewell is a member.
“I’m glad you said that now,” Cooper teased Sewell. “He didn’t say that before. … His mom was the one who told him to run the [400]. He hated it. He fought it tooth and nail.”
While the 400 might be his race of choice, Sewell is the nation’s fastest 9-year-old sprinter in the 200. On July 31, the soon-to-be fourth grader at Rosedale Christian Academy clocked a time of 26.41 seconds in a semifinal heat at the 58th AAU Junior Olympic Games in Greensboro, North Carolina.
That time edged the previous national record of 26.46 seconds set by Tyler Mapson Jr. in 2012. But Sewell, his family and Cooper were not sure he had reset the mark until several minutes later, when the time was finally posted on the Junior Olympics’ website.
“I thought I didn’t do it,” Sewell said. “But I was feeling really good. I thought I could do anything.”
Nearly a month after his accomplishment, Sewell’s confidence has not waned. Asked what he wants to do next, he replied, “To break the Olympic record — all of them.”
Cooper, a former running back at Minnesota and Louisville who spent time with the Green Bay Packers, Tennessee Titans and Detroit Lions, said he fully believes in Sewell.
“I think Juelz will probably be the first 13-year-old kid to qualify for the Olympics in ’28,” he said, referring to the Summer Games in Los Angeles. “I know he’ll run 20-point something [seconds] in the 200 by the time he’s 13. He runs 26 [seconds] at 9 [years old]. So you give us four more years, and he’ll knock off a second-and-a-half every year.”
The youngest of two raised by Jaia Russell, Sewell has participated in flag football since he was 3 years old and then tackle football. Russell said she initially considered signing him up for gymnastics because of his fondness for jumping off of steps and furniture.
Sewell, who wore a Forever Strong Elite Track Club shirt with “Believe” on the right sleeve and “Be Great” on the left, said he favors track over football. “I like it because it’s fun to do, and you can’t get hurt that much,” he said.
Asked if her son has a lot of energy, Russell replied, “I still worry about that. We went to the water park all day when we were at the [Junior] Olympics, and afterwards Coach said, ‘We’ve got practice.’ I said, ‘Oh wow.’ But he went to practice still with so much energy. There’s literally no outlet for him. We have to make him go to sleep.”
In his first year in track, Sewell said he wasn’t particularly fast, noting that his time in the 400 was “slow.” But Cooper had a different perspective.
“I had him run through these hurdles called wickets, and when I saw him run through them, he was kind of like a cartoon character who’s running so fast that you can’t see his feet,” he said. “I was like, ‘This kid is going to be special one day.’ That’s when I knew we may have someone special on our hands.”
Sewell’s times last year and this summer improved to the point where he practiced with teammates as old as 14. Two weeks before the Junior Olympics, Sewell ran the 200 in under 27 seconds, and Cooper said he knew his student was on the cusp of something special.
Although Sewell collected a silver medal in the 200 final, he got what he came for — the national record.
“I’ve wanted to break the national record at the Junior Olympics for a long time,” said Sewell, who also placed fourth in the 400 and 4×100-meter relay and earned All-America honors in all three events. “I thought the first time [in a preliminary heat], I was going to do it, but I didn’t do it. The second time, I knew I was going to do it, and I believed I could do it. And then I did it.”
Sewell’s achievement delighted his mother.
“We were very happy when we found out,” Russell said. “I was surprised because that record hadn’t been broken in 12 years. … It feels great just knowing that he worked so hard throughout all of these seasons, and this is his first time actually breaking a record in the [Junior] Olympics.”
Sewell’s success isn’t limited to the track. He played slot receiver and tight end for the Woodlawn Secret Society Panthers’ 8-year-old football team that captured the American Youth Football D2 national championship in December in Naples, Florida, and he is a straight-A student.
“The sky’s the limit with him because he’s such a great kid,” Cooper said. “He’s a kid just like any other normal 9 year old. He likes to play and tear stuff up and jump off stuff. He’s just got so much energy, but overall, he’s a great kid. He’s going to be a great individual, a great athlete and a great person.”
If he needed American role models in track, Sewell could follow Noah Lyles, the Olympic gold medalist in the 100; Quincy Hall, the Olympic gold medalist in the 400; or Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old Bowie native and Bullis School sophomore who became the youngest American male to compete for the U.S. team. Instead, Sewell is looking inward.
“I just look up to myself,” he said. “I’ll be faster than all of them.”
Russell said she is always reminding her son to be humble. But she also doesn’t want to limit himself.
“I want him to dream big, and he does dream big,” she said. “Now he’s talking about, ‘I’m going to go to the Olympics, and I’m going to be faster than Noah Lyles.’ Now it’s actually a reality he can meet.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0