Huntingtown forward Harleigh White (9) is eager to make the most of her final playoff run with the Hurricanes’ soccer team before she focuses exclusively on her budding track future. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The shock of setting a new personal record in the triple jump had barely set in last July when Harleigh White realized life was about to change.
She wanted to celebrate with her parents at the USA Track and Field Junior Olympic national championships in Sacramento after a jump of 41 feet 4 ½ inches on her final attempt, more than a foot better than her previous best mark. But White couldn’t find them.
Instead, a bevy of college coaches stood in her way, jockeying for the attention of a rising senior that had gone from a promising soccer player to an Olympic hopeful seemingly in one leap.
“I never thought I’d be going to college for track. I never thought it was going to be this serious,” White said last week. “Freshman year, I thought it would just make me faster for soccer.”
White remains one of the leading goal scorers and a captain for the Huntingtown girls’ soccer team as the Hurricanes begin their pursuit of a state title in Tuesday’s Maryland 3A East region quarterfinals against Chopticon. They are seeking redemption after a run to the state semifinals last year ended abruptly with a loss on penalty kicks.
This campaign, however, has been unlike any other for White because she only recently elected to completely alter the course of her athletic career.
Though White is the two-time defending Maryland 3A state champion in the triple jump, it only became apparent to her in the summer of 2015, when she won the triple jump competition at the Amateur Athletic Union national championships, that she might be one of the nation’s elite jumpers.
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Even before Christmas break last year, her sights were still set on securing a soccer scholarship. But a talk with her father, Chevy White, on a trip back home from Disney World led to a decision.
“’We don’t have a whole lot of suitors for soccer. We’re going to put more time in track,’” Chevy White said, recalling the conversation. “We knew she was rising in track.”
Huntingtown’s Harleigh White has shifted her focus from the soccer field to the jumping pit, where she’s blossomed into one of the nation’s top youth triple jumpers. (Photo courtesy of Chevy White)
How far she might go remains a mystery. White only began focusing on the triple jump as a sophomore because a Huntingtown coach suggested her long legs were perfect for the event. But her growth has been exponential since her training became more intensive.
Rather than play club soccer full-time last spring and this fall, White began offseason workouts with personal trainers and track coaches in Prince George’s County and Huntingtown. She took weightlifting more seriously and embraced plyometrics. She also set more lofty goals and achieving them motivated her to work even harder.
“I always used to complain about going to the gym,” White said. “This summer, I was like, ‘Dad, I’m not going to complain about going to the gym anymore because I actually want to be great.’ ”
But this fall has been “stressful,” White conceded, trying to balance track, soccer and the college recruiting process. She has already taken official visits to Missouri, Penn State, Clemson and Miami, and one more recruiting trip to South Carolina remains before she plans to make a college decision next month.
White is also a National Honor Society member who participates in a bio-medical program offered at Huntingtown that allows her to shadow professionals at local hospitals. She wants to become a pediatric nurse practitioner whenever her athletic career is over.
Despite all these commitments, she has missed very few soccer practices. Her teammates and coaches nonetheless understand track comes first now.
Harleigh White, right, remains a key offensive contributor for the Hurricanes with 17 goals and 14 assists as the playoffs get underway. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
But playing soccer on Huntingtown’s lumpy grass field comes with risk. Asked if he worries about a soccer injury jeopardizing his daughter’s track aspirations, Chevy White responded: “Every game.”
“I’d feel like the biggest heel in the world if she blew out her ACL,” Huntingtown girls’ soccer Coach Charlie Raphael said.
Harleigh White, however, doesn’t seem concerned by all this. She still gets the occasional recruiting letter from college soccer coaches. Her natural athleticism continues to be an asset at striker and allowed her to finish the regular season with 17 goals and 14 assists. Her long-term goals, however, are all track-related now.
She wants to jump more than 42 feet this spring and qualify for the 2017 World Junior Championships. By the end of her freshman year of college, White thinks surpassing the 2016 USA Olympic Trials qualifying mark of 44 feet is a realistic target.
Before all that, though, she’d like to end her soccer career on a high note.
“This will probably be my last time playing forever, so you just can’t be scared of getting hurt,” White said. “It’s the atmosphere that I love. I love the people and if I didn’t play high school, I would’ve regretted it.”
