Bonny Eagle’s Aidan Walcott, center, edges out the competition to win the 100 meter dash during the Class A track and field championships at Massabesic High School on June 5. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
It was a full month before Aidan Walcott found out the Class A state record he broke in the 200 meters had stood for 25 years.
“My dad just graduated from high school in 1995. That’s crazy the record was (almost) that old,” the Bonny Eagle junior said with a laugh a week ago.
Walcott is a relative newcomer to the state championships, having competed only as a freshman at the outdoor meet in 2019 before this spring. He participates in basketball during the winter rather than indoor track, and there was no outdoor season during his sophomore year in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Yet Walcott wasted no time raising the bar on his high school track and field career at this year’s Class A state meet at Massabesic High on June 2.
He won the 200 meters in 21.96 seconds to erase the record of 22.07 set by Nate Sergent of Gardiner in 1996. And that was after he broke a 15-year-old record in his 100-meter preliminary heat, running 10.80 to erase the mark of 10.86 set by Colby Brooks of Edward Little in 2006. Walcott then ran 10.88 in the finals to win the event. He also took fourth in the high jump at 6 feet, 2 inches.
For a breakout performance that now places him among the fastest runners in Maine high school history, Walcott is the 2021 Varsity Maine Boys’ Athlete of the Year in outdoor track.
Walcott started running track in eighth grade with the goal of being “better than anyone.” But football was his first love and basketball was his next favorite, after he executed his first dunk in the fifth grade.
The coaching staff at Bonny Eagle knew Walcott had rare speed as a freshman in 2019 when he placed fifth in the 100 meters at Southwesterns in 11.14 seconds, said Ryan Dyer, the team’s sprints coach.
“We all just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘He’s got some wheels,’ ” Dyer said.
Walcott finished sixth in the 100 meters at the Class A state meet that year, running 11.47. By this spring, at an intrasquad meet in mid-April, he ran the 100 in a hand time of 11.1.
Walcott wasn’t focused on state records entering the 2021 state meet – just winning a title. But now he thinks he can go even faster.
“I feel as I get older and stronger, I’ll get faster,” said Walcott, who lives in Steep Falls. “I feel basketball and football help me in the sprints and jumps. But all year at the meets, we’d only have one other team. There wouldn’t be this big pool of kids to run against. States felt like it was going to be super fast. There was good competition.”
Mike Burleson, the boys’ head coach at Bonny Eagle, also thinks Walcott’s best races are ahead of him.
“When you look at this kid, his high end is so much higher than that,” Burleson said. “He will simply improve. He is the real deal.”
Dyer also expects that Walcott will improve because he simply has raw speed – as well as a no-nonsense, get-it-done attitude.
“I don’t think Aidan gets caught up in records and all that stuff. He doesn’t boast. He has a calm demeanor,” Dyer said. “If I tell him (Gorham High sprinter) Andrew Farr has run 11.1 or 11.2, he’ll just say, ‘Yeah, I got this, Coach. No worries. It’s cool.’ He is very nonchalant.”
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