Speed is lethal. It can’t be taught and, at the high school level, most often it can’t be defended. Elite speed provides a team with a tremendous advantage and an individual athlete with scores of opportunities.
Athletes like Lee County’s Tray Eafford.
Eafford is a lightning bolt of a player. As a freshman, when the Trojans were in 5A, he was one of the fastest players in the state. When Lee County made the move to 6A, he was one of the fastest players there as well. And when he gets to Troy, where he will play college football and likely run track as well, he’ll be one of the fastest over there.
“Tray is a true sprinter. He has God-given talent, but he works hard at his craft. He trains with a purpose, and that makes him easy to coach. He’s really into it, just like he is with everything he does. He also took that speed from the track over to the football field, and he made things happen there as well,” says Condre Payne, Eafford’s track coach at Lee County.
When Eafford was a freshman, he won the 100-meters in Region 1-5A. After missing his sophomore track season, he bounced back last year in Region 1-6A with region championships in the 100-meters and 200-meters. “He showed he can run with the best last year,” Coach Payne says. Eafford qualified for the state meet at Sectionals but, in the 100-meters, he stumbled out of the blocks and finished a disappointing seventh place. He came in sixth in the state in the 200-meters. “He hadn’t stumbled all year. He carried a lot of things away from that experience. A lot of people have been talking to him, and he’s really ready to go out this year and do his thing,” Coach Payne says.
This year, Eafford would like to return to the state meet and walk away with a win. “I want to win this year. That’s my goal,” he says. As soon as football season ended, Eafford began training for track. At the time of this writing, it’s March 1, and Eafford already had three months of quality training under his belt. “I’ve been training hard. I started pretty early, right after football season was over. I think I get the times I need to place well at state.” Eafford believes a 10.4 will win the 100-meters. In the 200, he thinks a 21 flat will get on the podium. His best 100 is a 10.5 and his best 200 is a 21.95. When he discusses his chances of reaching those times, you can hear the confidence in his voice: “I know I can run those times. But I can’t stumble again.”
On the football field, Eafford used his 4.38 speed to torch opposing defenses. A wide receiver, he caught 27 passes for 790 yards and 13 touchdowns. He was an ever-present deep threat, and it didn’t hurt that he had one of the best quarterbacks in the state under center throwing to him. “Garet [Morrell] made our job very easy. It was fun playing with him. He’s a great quarterback. I knew he could get the ball to me. He threw a lot of deep balls and I ran a lot of deep routes. That was nothing for us,” he says.
Schools all over the country were after Eafford. In the end, though, he chose Troy University. Troy is a Division I program close to home that runs a similar offense to what he’s grown accustomed to at Lee County. “The coaches made me feel at home. They were great. I wanted to go big, but not too big. Troy felt really good,” he says.
Coach Payne believes Troy is a good fit for Eafford. He’s seen how well he performs on the track and the gridiron. And he knows his star sprinter will be successful at the next level. “Right now, he’s training hard and focusing on his grades so he can get to Troy this summer. He’s very strong and explosive. Tray’s a phenomenal young man. The sky is the limit for him,” Coach Payne says.
Special Feature/South Georgia/April 2016
Tray Eafford
Lee County High School
Leesburg, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Lee County football star builds championship resume on the track as well
