The voice was relentless.
Wherever Alex Lipscomb went, he couldn’t escape the question his mother, Rosalind Boaz, had been asking for years: “When?”
Lipscomb admitted that as a high school freshman the words seemed like noise — a constant nagging he avoided by hanging out with friends or
ignored by playing it cool.
It wasn’t until Lipscomb’s sophomore year that the words finally reverberated in his head. Maybe it was the college football coaches who came to Columbus High School and asked the coaches, “Who is No.
25?” When Lipscomb heard college coaches were asking about him, his ears perked up and he thought he must be doing something right.
Then it dawned on him. What about the voice?
“It was pretty much, ‘When are you going to stop playing and do it?’, or ‘When are you going to listen to me and do it?’ ” Lipscomb said about his mother’s message to him. “It was always, ‘When? When are you
going to decide to do it? I can’t do it for you.’ I decided it was time to playing and time to go.”
Consider the Alex Lipscomb who didn’t heed his mother’s words two years ago gone. In his place is an Alex Lipscomb that is much more mature and on his way to realizing the potential his mother and
college football and track and field coaches have seen for years.
On Saturday, Lipscomb continued that transformation by finishing in the top four in four events at the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A North State meet at Madison Central High. In the
process, Lipscomb qualified for the MHSAA overall Class 6A meet in the 110- and the 300 hurdles and the 4×200 and the 4×400 relays. The
Columbus High junior won the 300 hurdles with a time of 39.98 seconds.
That time was just off the personal-best time of 39.51 he recorded a
week earlier in winning at the Class 6A, Region 2 meet at Clinton
High.
In addition to his first in the 300 hurdles, Lipscomb finished fourth
in the 110 hurdles (15.32). He then teamed with Eric Harris, Jarrelle
Peterson, and Donsha Walker to finish fourth in the 4×200 relay. The
team’s time was its second-best of the year. The team of Johnson
Washington, Kenny Bush, Peterson, and Lipscomb also finished fourth in
the 4×400 relay. All of the athletes will compete next Saturday at the
overall Class 6A meet at Pearl High. The Class 2A and 4A meets also
will be next Saturday. The Class 1A, 3A, and 5A meets will be Monday,
May 12, at Pearl High.
For Lipscomb, the overall Class 6A meet will be another chance to
prove how far he has come from his days as an underclassman who
thought he had all of the answers.
“I feel like I have improved a lot from my ninth-grade year to where I
am right now,” Lipscomb said. “My ninth-grade year, I was playing
around and still trying to find myself. I wasn’t working hard and I
was not understanding what coach was saying and I wasn’t listening to
him. The more mature I got, the more I started listening to him and
understand if I put in the work this could happen. That is how I feel
I started to get better. I started to listen.”
Lipscomb, whose brother, Antoine, was a standout track and field
athlete at Starkville High before moving on the compete at Mississippi
State, credits his mother and his coaches for staying on him and
telling him to invest in his talent and that he shouldn’t allow his
potential to go to waste. He said his mother’s words also have
sharpened an inner drive that motivates him and pushes him not to
fail.
“I want to be the best in everything I do,” Lipscomb said. “To be the
best I have train the best and do everything those people are telling
me to do. That is where it came from and how I learned to strive for
greatness.”
Columbus High boys track and field coach Lawrence Hill has watched
Lipscomb mature for the past three seasons. He admits Lipscomb might
be a little “brash” because he believes in his abilities so much. He
recalls when Lipscomb found out college coaches who came to Columbus
High had asked about him and how he started to take everything a
little more seriously after that.
“His drive and the way he approaches things is totally different,”
Hill said. “He is thinking about the next level, how can I get better
for the next level. When a kid starts thinking about that, that is
what you want.”
Hill said Lipscomb, who also plays wide receiver and free safety on
the school’s football team, has unlimited potential in both sports to
help pave his way to college. He also credits Lipscomb’s mother, and
said she stays on Alex in part because she wants him to be successful
more just as much as any coach.
“She is the driving force behind him,” Hill said. “She keeps asking
him, ‘When are you going to realize the opportunity?’ She keeps
pushing and pushing and pushing. I think finally he said, ‘Maybe I
need to push myself, too.’ Once he started pushing himself it just
clicked.”
Hill said the epiphany Lipscomb had didn’t alter his focus in the
classroom. He said Lipscomb is a solid student who takes care of his
work because he understands he won’t be able to continue his athletic
career if he isn’t diligent on and off the field. That’s why Hill uses
the cliche “the sky is the limit” when asked what the future holds for
Lipscomb. While coaches throughout the country may use that phrase to
describe their players, Hill feels Lipscomb’s hard work in the
classroom and in athletics is a unique blend.
“Every 17-year-old high school student feels he sometimes needs a day
off when he doesn’t,” Hill said, “but he is not afraid to do the work,
and he will do the work. He has seen the results from it.
“Alexander’s only limitation is himself. He can do whatever he puts
his mind to because he has something other people don’t have. He has
the ability to back it up. If Lip decides he wants to run in the
Olympics, he can run in the Olympics. If he decides he wants to play
Division I football and do track, He can do it.”
For now, Lipscomb’s primary focus is finding a way to do things a
little faster. The slightest deviation could cost him in the 110 and
the 300 hurdles, while a twitch or a slip could mean the difference
between a first and a fourth in the relays. But Hill said Lipscomb’s
desire to be the best allows him to accept coaching and to understand
he needs to work every day if he wants to realize his goal.
If he forgets, Lipscomb only has to listen for the voice to remind him
his day isn’t done and there is work to be done.
“School-wise, I am telling you, she was at the school getting me
right,” Lipscomb said as he snaps his fingers to demonstrate his
mother was keeping him in step and on time “If my mom wasn’t there to
be there to say, ‘Alex, you need to do this. You need to stop playing
and you have to do your homework when you come home, I probably
wouldn’t be where I am academically (an A to C student with a 2.7
grade-point average) where I am now if she wouldn’t have stay on me.
“I think hurdling can get me into college very quickly. The work ethic
I put behind hurdling is incredible. From where I was — just coming to
practice and sitting around and thinking I was the best — to now and
(how hard) I have worked, the practice is starting to show. I can
continue on that route and work and work and work and I will get my
times down. It is just crazy. I feel like I can do big things this
year.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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