Catoctin sprinting phenom Brody Buffington commits to Georgia for track and field

Apr. 3—Even before he set foot on campus, Brody Buffington had essentially decided the University of Georgia was the place for him.

"Great team, great facilities, great coaching, it's everything I want for a college," said the Catoctin senior and one of the fastest high school sprinters in the country. "I love the campus, too."

Shortly after he arrived in Athens, Georgia, to visit the school at the end of March, Buffington was on the phone with Catoctin coach Dave Lillard.

"He goes, 'Coach, I think I have found my school,'" Lillard said.

So, Lillard asked him, "If they offer you something, what are you going to say?"

Buffington pondered for a moment and said, "I think I am going to say yes."

But Carly Smith Gilbert, the director of men's and women's track and field at Georgia, would not let him make a hasty decision.

According to Lillard, she handed Buffington an envelope with Georgia's full scholarship offer enclosed and told him to take it home, discuss it with his family and let her know in a couple of days.

"That says a lot about the type of coach she is. I was so impressed by that," Lillard said of Gilbert. "That's a coach who wants to know an athlete wants to be there. If they take a few days to think about it before making a decision, then you know they want to be there."

A couple of days later, Buffington called Gilbert and told her Georgia was his choice.

"They've got a pretty good program," he said. "It's similar training to here [at Catoctin]."

After running some of the fastest times in the nation during the indoor track season in the 55- 60- and 300-meter dashes, Buffington, 17, had received full scholarship offers from nearly a dozen major programs.

Full scholarships are not nearly as plentiful in college track and field as some other sports. But schools like Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas and Oregon, located in one of the epicenters of the sport in Eugene, felt Buffington was worth the investment and made an offer.

But none of the schools appealed to him as much as Georgia, and most could not offer the year-round warm weather that is ideal for training.

Plus, the Bulldogs seem to be a program on the rise nationally. They placed second as a team at the men's NCAA indoor track and field championships on March 11.

Then, this past weekend at the Texas Relays in Austin, their 4x400 relay team ran the second-fastest time in collegiate track and field history (2:58.82) on the way to winning the event.

Buffington told Lillard, "Coach, when I went to Georgia, it felt like Catoctin. It was a small team. It was a tight-knit team. It was a good group of guys, easy to talk to."

With his college decision behind him, Buffington is set to make his debut during the outdoor season this week, either at Thursday's tri-match at Urbana or, more likely, at Saturday's Sam Singleton Scorpion Classic at Oakland Mills High School, where he will run the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

Catoctin has held him out of early season meets to this point to conserve his energy in events that he is unlikely to be pushed very much and to guard against injury in the colder weather.

"Our first meet was cold and rainy," Lillard said. "You are not going to run a sub-10.5 [second] 100 dash in that kind of weather."

The Cougars have also pulled him from the long jump, an event he won the Class 1A state title in last spring, since Georgia has told him that they have no plans to use him as a jumper in his first season there.

Lillard feels the risk of injury is too great for him in a jumping event.

"He is getting a full ride to Georgia. At this point, we don't want to mess anything up," Lillard said.

In place of the long jump, Buffington will likely add the 4x400 relay to his normal event schedule (100, 200, 4x200 relay).

He keeps asking Lillard, "Coach, when is my first meet?" But he totally understands the caution being shown with the big picture in mind.

Two years ago, he said none of this seemed possible to him. He was concentrating on lacrosse and not even running track.

Now, he says, "I am glad to be a Bulldog."

Follow Greg Swatek on Twitter: @greg_swatek