Courtesy photo by SportsPix Former Nashua South standout Terrell Lewis of Plymouth State received All-American status for his indoor season in the 60 mieter hurdles, but has even bigger goals for next season

He was won of the best athletes to ever come out of Nashua High School South.

Now, after becoming just one of three indoor track athletes in the college’s history to achieve All-American status, Terrell Lewis wants to become one of the best athletes ever at Plymouth State University.

“That’s my goal,” he said, as later this month will mark three years since he won the State

Decathlon.

It’s dreams and goals that have spurred Lewis, who a couple of weeks ago was awarded All-American status for the 60 meters indoors by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, despite the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships being canceled due to the pandemic just 24 hours before Lewis was to compete in the 60-meter hurdles. It was decided All-American status would be awarded to all the qualifiers, when normally it’s reserved for the top-eight finishers.

Still, he’ll take it.

“Honestly, it just felt like everything was coming together when they finally said I was an All-American,” Lewis said. “It felt really good. All the practices, all the preparation, even all the horrible workouts, everything came together.”

And Lewis’ season came together, as he was peaking at the right time.

He was just one of three New Englanders competing in the championship field in the 60-meter hurdles, and finished second in the Tufts National Qualifying Meet with a school record 8.13 seconds.

“We were clicking on all cylinders going into the National Meet,” Lewis said. “I was PR’ing (personal records) every week, three weeks prior. I felt like I was really going to have a good race when it finally game to it.”

“It’s tough,” PSU coach John Ostler said. “He’s this thoroughbred that we’re finally going to let off the leash and reins and compete and he doesn’t get that chance. There’s that feeling of dissatisfaction that you don’t get the kind of closure that you wanted. He’s looking to get that next year.”

“It was my first nationals trip to North Carolina, everybody was already there,” Lewis said. “Pre-meet, and when we got back to the hotel and were told they canceled the meet and we had to find our way home.”

Lewis never really thought he could actually be the accomplished athlete he is now, even though it was certainly a goal.

“I always dreamt about it but I never really saw it coming true until I started really improving my sophomore year of high school,” Lewis said. “All through middle school and freshman year, it was ‘Yeah I’m a track athlete, but I’m just kind of on the team.’ Then I started to make big moves and times and stuff like that. Then it was ‘Hold on, I can actually do something with this.’ ”

Then Lewis said he began talking to colleges his junior year, and then in senior year he realized “I’m actually going to college for track, I can do something, I can actually try and do something with my ability,” he said.

“He had some great coaching at South, and he came to us really well formed,” Ostler said. “I think he had just an appreciation for the smaller things now. We’ve begun to dig into the details of his hurdling. We’ve worked a lot on mental preparation, which I think has gone a long way for him.

“In the past, he’s gotten away with being supremely talented, so he could just kind of show up to the races and excel and win, and beat everyone. But that’s not the case in college, right?”

No, so Lewis had to pay more attention as to how he warmed up, prepared, etc.

Raising his game

What did Lewis take from his days at Nashua South to the world of collegiate track and field at Plymouth State?

“A lot of my collegiate races, I didn’t really know everyone I was racing against,” he said. “So I went into races with the idea everyone was faster. Beat everyone and you’ll get a good time.

“Where in high school I was racing against those kids for four years, and even in middle school. So I knew who was fast and who wasn’t. So I guess the competition (in college) is what made me step up my own game.”

So how does a sprinter do that?

“It started to become easier as I started to use more lifts and plyometrics into my training,” Lewis said. “In high school, I wasn’t lifting as much as I am for track in college. It’s totally different. In college, lifting is a huge part of your training. It’s more like 60 percent of everything you do in the weight room translates to what you do on the track.”

And now that he competed his junior year, experience gives him comfort. And so has playing football, as Lewis is also a starting wide receiver/cornerback for the Panthers, as he was at South. This past season at PSU as a wide receiver, he had 11 catches for 261 yards and three touchdowns. He also had four kickoff returns for 97 yards, giving him 387 all-purpose yards for the season.

“I like wide receiver better, they’re the playmakers,” he said, hoping he has a senior football season in the fall. “I’m hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. … I’m keeping my track workouts intertwined with my football lifts. I’m trying to gain strength but also keep the speed in case it goes from summer vacation to track season.”

Football has been a valuable warmup for track.

“Exactly,” Lewis said. “I don’t come into track like a potato, as if I’ve been sitting for five months. I have three months of football season to actually get me going, a rolling start into track season.”

“It obviously keeps him in shape year round,” Ostler said. “That’s one of the things with college athletes. When we get them we kind of hope they’re ready to go. We might get Terrell a little bit later, but we know he’s going to come in excellent shape.”

In high school, Lewis won state titles in indoor and outdoor high jump to add to his Decathlon title, his final athletic competition of his high school career.

Football and track have provided him quite a contrast. Which is his favorite?

“It’s tough,” he said. “Football is a team sport, you need everyone firing on all cylinders, for everyone to succeed and win the game. In track, even if you’re in a relay, it comes down to like personal.

“That’s a tough question. That’s why I do both. You have your personal goals, you’re racing yourself, and the team goals – if drop the ball, this could mean the game for my team. I’m not just letting myself down, I’m letting everybody down.”

Had their been an outdoor season, Lewis was going the run the 110 hurdles – he was last year’s New England champion — long jump, high jump, and maybe the 200 (he did that in indoor), plus one of the two relays. He likes the 110, but the 60 meter hurdles is so fast, “You have to be almost perfect.”

But Ostler, who had Lewis focus mainly on hurdles instead of jumps this year, thinks Lewis “is even better in the 110 hurdles. He’s got some stamina to handle the extra 40, 50 meters. He does not lose as much speed going over the extra hurdles in the 110. … He just has that confidence that he knows he has the stamina and he knows he has the technique to glide over the hurdles and not be affected by hurdles six, seven, eight, nine and 10, when other athletes are held down by fatigue.”

In fact, Ostler thinks that Lewis could gain All-American status next year in the 110 hurdles outdoors as well.

“Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a year,” he said. “But going into this year I thought to myself that if he could kind of squeak in to (national qualifying) indoor and get some experience, then outdoor was going to be where he would make a name for himself.”

Built for speed

Ostler changed Lewis’ direction this season. Technique was important, yes; but there was a more important ingredient.

“This year, it was about speed,” Lewis said. “It was getting better every time we practiced. We just wanted speed — pure speed, being the fastest. The first three weeks of the season, I didn’t even hurdle, just the open 60. We would still work on my hurdles form during the week, but when it comes down to it, it’s a sprinting event. That would help me in between hurdles.”

But so did his competitive nature. Ostler didn’t want finesse to take over.

“I told him, ‘You’re a football player,'” Ostler said. “You have to take a football mentality into this hurdle race. Run it like you’re going to run through some blockers, or some tacklers, right, and not try to be dainty over the top of the hurdle.”

Lewis said he’d still work on his hurdles form during the week early in the season, “but when it comes down to it, it’s a sprinting event. You have to have raw speed to improve.”

Quite coachable

Ostler remembers Lewis’ path to Plymouth State. “Terrell was one of the most easy kids I’ve had to recruit, really,” he said. “I knew he applied, I obviously knew of him because he was such a stellar athlete.”

And then Ostler met Lewis and his father at an open house. “He was quiet, but I could tell we connected,” the coach said. “He kind of shared my vision of what I thought he could be.”

And a week later, deposit down, plans to, well, stay a Panther made. Lewis wanted to go to a place where he could play both football and track.

Will there be track life after PSU for Lewis?

“It kind of comes down to if anyone sees me do anything, really, if there’s any sponsorships,” the criminal justice major said, who moved from Nashua to New Boston a year ago. “If that doesn’t happen, I’ll just go into what I planned on gong into college – and that’s to become a police officer.”

But before that, Lewis is focused on having a senior year at PSU to remember.

“My main goal, say there’s no football – if we have football, I want to win out, get another championship ring,” he said. “And all that. And for track, I want to compete for the national title, and I want to get the national title.”

Ostler won’t doubt him.

“It’s funny, because each year he kind of leaves me with, ‘I am going to do this next season.’ ” the coach said. “And last year as a sophomore he missed out qualifying for nationals by just a thousandth of a second. So as we were leaving, and knew he wasn’t really going to go on, he said ‘Coach, this year I’m qualifying, this year I kind of danced around but next year I’m going to break the door down.'”

And he did, something Lewis thought he had a shot at this year before the meet cancellation.

“I was going to be super close this year,” Lewis said. “There was a lot of talent in the field and I was going to race all these good guys.”

And Lewis felt he would’ve been up to the challenge. He still appreciates being an All-American, but Lewis says he would’ve loved to have done it the normal way – by finishing in the top eight of an actual 60-meter hurdles National Championship race.

“I’m happy that I’m an All-American,” he said, “but I’m mad that I didn’t get to compete for it. … I want to look back at it and say I earned being an All-American.”

But no one will argue that Lewis would’ve earned it anyway. And it will make him hungrier for the 2021 season. He has fully grasped the collegiate level now after three seasons.

“Exactly,” Lewis said. “It’s a drastic difference. In high school, everyone is within three or four years of you. In college, you could be racing against someone who is 25 years old and they’ve been training since they were in high school. You’re racing against grown men and women, and you have to really push yourself.”

What about the Olympics? Does he ever dream of that? Is that a goal that’s too far out of reach?

“I’d have to seriously drop my friends,” he said. “But it’s every track athlete’s dream. I would love to go to the Olympics.”

Why not? Terrell Lewis has been making dreams come true for awhile now.