AUSTIN – West Plains High School turned gold Thursday for the first time in school history thanks to flamboyant, athletic and gold medal-owner Brycen Williams.
Williams made his fourth and final appearance at the UIL State Track and Field Meet count as the senior cleared 6-foot-7 inches tying for first place in the Class 4A high jump, earning the first gold medal for a West Plains athlete since the school opened in the fall of 2022.
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“I am really excited for this,” said Williams, a Lubbock Christian University signee. “Obviously, to be the first gold medal (winner) in West Plains history and now I can’t wait to compete at the next level.”
Williams was coming off a bout with the flu three days ago but still looked flawless in his early jumps.
The 6-foot-3 Williams entered the competition at 6-4, easily clearing 6-4, 6-6 and 6-7 on his first attempts. The 6-7 effort left him and Hamshire-Fannett’s Kobe Prejean the remaining two jumpers in the field of nine.
“Looking at all the jumpers heights on paper and see where I stood at 6-10, I was really confident coming into this meet,” Williams said.
Williams is an owner of a personal best jump of 6-11. Senior Prejean had entered the competition at 6-2 and cleared each height up to 6-7 without a miss. Williams and Prejean each missed all three of their attempts at 6-8, thus tying for the gold medal.
“I was pretty close on that last one,” Williams said. “I was like ‘aww, dang it’ but I didn’t get it.”
Although Williams wasn’t sure of the way the tiebreaker would work out since Prejean entered at 6-2, he was a happy camper to be standing on the top of the medal stand.
“I was not sure how it was going to play out,” Williams said. “But yeah, I like the way it did.”
Williams is no stranger to success in the high jump.
Two weeks ago he put on a show at regionals clearing 6-10 and narrowly missing out on 7-0. Then his history on the biggest stage Texas high school track offers at Mike A. Myers Stadium is impressive, first, opening eyes statewide as a freshman with his silver medal finish, doubling down with another silver as a sophomore, not making the medal stand as a junior finishing sixth, then closing out his high school career Thursday with the gold medal.
“I’ve been thinking about this moment for three years,” Williams said of winning gold. “It’s an amazing feeling to know it’s here.”
Williams is forever the answer to a West Plains trivia question, a history maker at his alma mater as the first to win a gold medal at the UIL state track and field meet.
“My time at West Plains has been amazing,” Williams said. “I love the coaches there. I love the faculty, just everything about West Plains. I’m going to miss it.”