Devin Jenkins places 4th in the nation

The blast of smoke begins the race and the hungry eyes of the racer sees one thing; the finish line. 
To watch these runners of Southern University’s track team is to see  pure talent at its greatest peak. Honorably noted is the Southern University’s sprinter, Devin Jenkins. 
Hawaii native, Jenkins is a 20-year-old sophomore Mechanical Engineering major from Kapolei High School, located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. 
The most memorable race for Jenkins is when he ran in the Junior Olympics, in his junior year of high school and with no seed time he finished seventh overall before his career at Southern. 
He is a 6’0 sprinter that specializes in 10 meter and 4×100 meter races under the tutelage of Coach Brian Johnson. 
“I am very proud of my runner and to see that Southern is on the map for my program,” said Johnson. 
Johnson approached Jenkins when he was in high school and made him welcome to be apart of the track team. 
“Coach Johnson doesn’t teach me to be a better athlete but to be a better person because he wants me to graduate and hey, I want to graduate too,” said Jenkins. 
On March 21,, Jenkins claimed the highest achievement in track, by becoming  number one in the nation when he ran the fastest seed time of 10.18 seconds at the Texas Southern relays in Houston. 
“When you play in the SWAC, I run with men of my caliber and I was very grateful to be placed at number one because of the hard work I put in to get that.” said Jenkins.
Then came the holy grail of sports, the Texas Relays, where competition and schools from abroad compete to claim that spot and that they did. Jenkins representing Southern placed fourth in the finals on the 100-meter race with a time of 10.19 seconds. This now places Jenkins fourth place in the nation. 
“This race was more of a push for me because of runners that were at my caliber or faster than me and that put me out of my comfort zone.” said Jenkins, “And I exerted a lot more energy because there was lot more competition for me to face.” 
Gerald Phiri from Texas A&M took the number one spot at the Texas Relays in 2011 and still holds the record with 10.06 seconds. 
“Track is an unpredictable sport and anything can happen because at one point you could be number one and then plummet to lower numbers.” said Jenkins. 
Last Friday was the Pelican Relays where once again Jenkins was placed in a crowd that he was aware of. Jenkins was at home at the Roscoe J. Moore Track. He was elated to be back at home where the crowd enjoys him and has people supporting him and felt the warm ambience of home.  “It really felt good to be back on the track that I practice on but I was still nervous and had loads of pressure on me,” said Jenkins.
Jenkins zoomed past his competition at home and procured a first place spot with 10.30 seconds while his stiff competition from Grambling State University, Kameron Cowan following his lead, came in at second. 
Jenkins supports the future and the competition that will come in behind him. His motto is to stay healthy and balancing work and play. Most of all he reinforces discipline and the strict ruling of how to apply it in another student’s life. 
“I will be practicing to reclaim that number one spot.”