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EDWARDSVILLE – Travis Anderson's contributions to Edwardsville's boys track team have been numerous.
Anderson won last year's state Class 3A 110-meter hurdles championship, running a 13.71 to nip Belleville East's William Session by a hundredth of a second. He also finished third in the 300-meter hurdles with a 38.04 to Session's 37.46 and ran a leg on the 4x100 relay team. On the 2015 Class 3A state championship team, he ran a leg on the fourth-place finishing 4x100 relay, ran a leg in the 4x200 relay and finished second in the 110 hurdles behind Session.
Anderson is going to be a big part of this coming spring's Tiger track team, but also made a major decision about his future, signing a letter of intent to attend the University of Nebraska beginning in the fall of 2017 to be a part of the Cornhusker track program.
“The decision came down to where I really felt more at home between Iowa and Nebraska,” Anderson said. “I felt like I was more at home while I was at Nebraska.
“I really loved the track; the facilities were great, they're top-of-the-line. I just feel that I can excel there.”
A conversation had with Huskers assistant coach Matt Martin helped convince Anderson to sign with Nebraska. “I talked briefly to coach Martin about the hurdles tradition at Nebraska,” Anderson said, “ and I want to be a part of it.”
“Being blessed with talented athletes is definitely a privilege and an honor to coach a kid like Travis,” said Tiger coach Chad Lakatos. “This is the second hurdler that coach (Alec) Holler has sent to a Big Ten school, with Isaiah (Michl) going to (Illinois) a couple of years ago.
“Coach Holler does a great job with Travis and all of our hurdlers; it makes it easy to be able to coach kids like this, but just to make sure they stay on the right path and do the right things along the way.”
Anderson signing with the Huskers is a part of the overall success of the EHS athletic program over the years, Lakatos feels. “We have a large school to choose from, and obviously, to compete in (the Southwestern) conference, hopefully you get the better athletes coming out.
“We look for kids who are talented; we don't talk much about the other things (Anderson) can do. He's a great high jumper, he went 6-4 last year at (the SWC) meet and scored big points for us. If we needed him to long jump, he would long jump, but being a great hurdler, he's able to do other things than just hurdle; he's a great all-around athlete for us.”
“We've had a real good string of talent at the hurdle position,” Holler said. “Isaiah was just real raw power and speed; he was never a hurdler before and transformed into one. Travis, I think, was born a hurdler; with that rhythm, it didn't take much to get him to the point where he was competing at a very high level.
“Ever since then, it's just been trying to push the envelope, trying to see how far we can go and I think he's shown his ceiling is very high and he can go very far.”
Being a part of a team that has had much success has meant much to Anderson. “It's great,” Anderson said. “It's a tremendous load off my shoulders not being the only one scoring big points for us with A.J. (Epenesa), Devonte (Tichner) in long jump, Justin (White) in high jump, our 4x100 and 4x200 teams, it's a load off my shoulders.”
Anderson, who plans to major in Geographic Information Systems at Nebraska, has some ambitious plans for the future. “Hopefully, the Olympics,” Anderson said. “After that, run for Nike or run for Adidas.”
