Every athlete handles competition differently.
For junior sprinter Michael Cherry, firing friendly trash talk at his teammates gets him revved up to take the blocks and go head-to-head.
But senior sprinter Cyril Grayson and junior sprinter Tinashe Mutanga cut the talking short and put it all on the track.
“I’m not a trash talker to be honest,” Mutanga said. “I just like to show it on the track, and if I do good, you can’t talk trash anymore. I’m going to come with the heat though.”
Team chemistry is essential in group sports like basketball and football, but it can be harder to foster in track and field, when an athlete must outrank opposing athletes and compete against teammates.
Grayson, Cherry and Mutanga agreed the competition between the Tigers is healthy and has no effect on the team’s dynamic or performance.
Mutanga transferred from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is in the middle of his first semester competing as a Tiger. The Zimbabwe native said the competitiveness has no effect on the family-like atmosphere at LSU.
“We’re more than teammates,” Mutanga said. “We’re brothers.”
Grayson said the sense of connection he found at LSU was the deciding factor in his choice of program.
“Everyone seemed like they supported everybody,” he said. “It just seemed like a brotherhood. It felt natural for me. It’s easy to want the best for them. It’s easy to want them to do good … When you have that type of support around each other, then you don’t want to let anybody down.”
Cherry, a transfer from Florida State, was familiar with some faces on the team when he started at LSU. It was all thanks to Grayson, who hosted Cherry when he left high school and was deciding which track and field program would be the best fit.
Though Cherry ultimately chose Florida first, Grayson said he tried to show Cherry what he thought was real about the University’s program because he didn’t want to oversell LSU.
“You have to take it for face value,” Grayson said. “If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. You just have to do what’s the best for you. Michael is a cool person. I love him like a brother, but he has to make his own decisions, and he wanted to go to Florida State because that’s what was best for him at that time. But he came back home like the prodigal son.”
On April 1 and 2, The Tigers and Lady Tigers traveled to Austin, Texas to compete in the Texas Relays at Mike A. Myers Stadium.
On day one, the men earned a spot in the men’s 4×100-meter relay final after achieving third place in the qualifying round with a time of 40.34 seconds. The team consisted of junior Jordan Moore, freshman Jaron Flournoy, junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Mutanga.
On the final day of the invitational, the Tigers grabbed first place in the men’s 4×400-meter relay. With junior sprinter LaMar Bruton (46.95), senior sprinter Fitzroy Dunkley (44.66), Grayson (46.01) and Cherry (44.20) at anchor, the Tigers posted a national-leading time of 3:01.83.
“I always want to beat everybody,” Cherry said. “If one [of my teammates] happens to beat you, you can’t really take it the hardest. You have another chance to race them again … When one of us beats each other, it’s like, ‘OK, come back to practice, talk trash again, go back out there and try another time to beat the person. If you don’t, you don’t. There’s really no confliction.”
“Nobody wants to lose” Cherry and Grayson said in unison.