Skip To Main Content

Orange Lutheran High School

Scoreboard

Hall of Fame

2009 relay team

2009 4x400 Relay Team State Champions

  • Class
    2009
  • Induction
    2025
  • Sport(s)
    Track and Field
It could be said that winning a relay title at the California State Track and Field Championships is one of the toughest feats in all of high school sports.
 
Every handoff, every stride and every split-second decision must be near perfect as the team makes its way through multiple elimination rounds, racing against arguably the deepest talent pool in the nation.
 
In 2009, four Orange Lutheran Lancers forever etched their names in the record books when they won the CIF State title in the boys 4x400 relay with a time of 3:14:53. What Terrence Brown '09, Kyle Dravis '09, Isiah Huss '09 and Damani Wilson '10 accomplished that spring night helped to put OLu on the map, and in recognition of their outstanding performance, they will be inducted later this month into the 2025 Orange Lutheran Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
Assembling a state championship relay team does not happen without hard work, commitment and a string of little miracles, or as former OLu track and field head coach and 2019 OLu Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Jack Preus calls them, "God moments." It's the way that every piece of this story fell perfectly into place, not just during the race, but long before these student athletes ever stepped on the starting line.
 
The Team: The road to building the most successful relay team in OLu history starts not on the track but on the football field. All four of these sprinters spent their fall seasons representing the Lancers on the gridiron as running backs, wide receivers and defensive backs. Football was their primary sport, and under the Friday night lights was where they forged their friendship.
 
But when spring season came around, Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson all ran track. It wasn't unusual. It was just what Lancer football players did.
 
"It was common amongst us all that we wanted to do multiple sports," said Brown. "That was just the culture at Orange Lutheran at the time. There were so many multi-sport and dual-sport athletes at Orange Lutheran when we were going to school."
 
In order for that to happen, a partnership between OLu's football and track and field programs was essential, and that was made possible in part by the collaboration between the coaches. OLu football coaches Bruce Thomas and 2019 OLu Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Mike Crawford '97 also coached the Lancers' boys and girls sprint teams.
 
"A few years prior, we made an intentional decision as a track and field program that we really wanted to be competitive, and we knew we couldn't do it without a strong, trusting relationship with our football program and coaches," said Preus.
 
Each of the four athletes came to OLu via their own paths and brought with them their own unique backgrounds that played a role in their collective success.
 
Huss had older siblings who had attended OLu, so he knew he would be a Lancer. He was four-year football and track athlete who specialized as a jumper, with the long jump and the triple jump as his main events.
 
When Dravis arrived at OLu, he was already well known in football and track circles. A talented four-year athlete in both sports, he was winning league MVP titles as a freshman, and his skills helped set the standard for what was to come.
 
Brown transferred to OLu as a sophomore. A four-year football and track athlete and the son of a pastor, he and his family found that the school was a perfect fit, not just academically and athletically, but spiritually as well.
 
Wilson was a four-year football player and track athlete for the Lancers and the lone junior on the relay team that year. He was familiar with Dravis and had played football and run track with Brown prior to entering high school.
 
At the start of the 2009 track and field season, these four were not the names initially on OLu's boys 4x400 relay roster.
 
Dravis and Wilson were returning members of the team, as was Brown, but he had committed to play college football at Stanford and was initially uncertain about running track his senior year. His teammates and coaches were thrilled when he ultimately decided to compete.
 
Huss joined the squad about halfway through the season after relay member Sam Weber suffered an injury. While his primary focus was jumps, he agreed to step in and run with the 4x400 team.
 
Heading into Trinity League Finals, Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson hadn't had many opportunities to race the 4x400 together as a complete unit. But everything was aligning for them to hit their stride at just the right time.
 
 
The Preparation: In California, the path to the CIF State Track and Field Championships is one of the most rigorous in the country, especially for relay teams.
 
For OLu, that path began at Trinity League Prelims and Finals, where the team had to qualify to advance to their CIF sectional round. In the powerhouse CIF Southern Section, that means advancing through section prelims, section finals and the ultra-competitive Masters Meet. Only the top finishers from Masters earn a spot at the State Championships.
 
Once at the CIF State Meet, teams must still race through Friday's State Prelims and qualify again to reach Saturday's State Finals, where California crowns its champions in a single, all-division meet.
 
Surviving this gauntlet as a relay team means everything needs to go right in several consecutive races. An injury, a step out of bounds or a dropped baton all could mean the end of the season and the chance at a state title.
 
But this group came in prepared. With the decision to create a competitive track program came OLu's adoption of the Baylor method of track training, a sprint training philosophy developed at Baylor University under coach Clyde Hart, who coached Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner.
 
The decision began to pay off. In 2007, OLu's boys 4x400 relay team qualified for the CIF State Championships but fell short of reaching the finals. The following year, the Lancers returned to the State Meet and finished third in the 4x400. The groundwork had been laid by several former Lancers, including sprinters Chris Woods '08 and Christian Lozon '07.
 
By the start of 2009, the training program was fully dialed in and expectations were high. Every aspect of the coaches' approach, from conditioning to workouts to race preparation, was purposeful and intense.
 
Attention was given to the details. There was significant time invested in replicating competition conditions, and baton handoffs were practiced over and over again until they were second nature. The training was designed for the runners to perform at their best at the end of the season, just in time for the State Finals.
 
Despite the grueling workouts that pushed them to their physical and mental limits, what Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson remember most from those days are the bonding moments they shared with the coaches and each other. The car rides to and from practice at Cal State Fullerton. The fusion hip hop jazz albums introduced to them by Coach Thomas. The ice baths. They started as friends on the football field and became a close-knit group on the track.
 
"The fact that we were all teammates year-round, because we were all football teammates as well, the discipline was instilled, no matter what season it was," said Wilson.
 
"We were really close," added Dravis. "Hanging out at each other's houses, we were with each other after practice…It was a full-time thing for us."
 
The core four bought in on the training and stepped up for OLu, the program and each other in every postseason race, earning a trip to the 2009 CIF State Track and Field Championships in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relay events. They certainly expected to be there, but the boys from the small school in Orange County were not necessarily favored to win.
 
 
The Race: Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School in Clovis, California, is home to one of the premier track and field venues in the country, and 2009 was the first year the stadium hosted the CIF State Meet.
 
Having earned a top time at Friday's 4x400 State Prelims, thanks in large part to a strong performance by Huss, the team's leadoff runner, the Lancers were placed in the highly coveted lane 5 for Saturday's final race.
 
On the evening of Saturday, June 6, 2009, Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson huddled together one final time, arms around each other as they always did, while Brown led them in a pre-race prayer.
 
Huss set up in his starting blocks, full of nerves, but focused on the training from the coaches that got him there. As soon as the gun went off, he could tell the field came out flying. The speed of the race forced him to run at 100% much earlier than he had planned, and when he handed the baton to Brown, OLu was in second to last place.
 
As the most experienced 400 meter runner of the group, Brown knew he had some work to do to get the Lancers back in the race, and he leaned on his mental toughness to do so.
 
Over the course of the lap, Brown steadily made his way up to fifth place. In the final 100 meters, he found himself caught in a tight pack. After an initial attempted move was cut off, he made a veteran decision to slow down, swing to the outside and accelerate, a move that Crawford contends to this day was the difference in the race.
 
With the Lancers in fifth, Wilson took the baton for the third leg and pushed his pace. As the pack started to separate, he stayed with the lead group. At the 200-meter mark, he realized he had enough energy left to kick the rest of the way, bringing the crowd to life, and surprising himself – and Dravis – when he handed off the baton in first place.
 
Dravis had the advantage of watching the race unfold before his turn, but finding himself in the lead, a position he wasn't used to, forced him to rethink his typical strategy and make some quick decisions as to how to run the anchor leg.
 
He made the choice to simply run as fast as he could. When the nearest competitor pulled up with an injury, Dravis opened up an early lead of nearly 30 meters. But pushing harder than usual left him running on empty down the stretch. In the final 100 meters, Long Beach Millikan closed the gap, finishing just one-tenth of a second behind OLu at the finish.
 
But whatever twists the race had taken, it all led to the same result – the Lancers were state champions.
 
"It is the most exciting sports event that I've witnessed, to see these young men do something that is the best in the state of California," said Thomas. "We were a little tiny school, and we won state."
 
Filming the race for the Lancer Sports Network, Crawford watched through the lens as Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson left it all out on the track and captured the state title.
 
"I don't think there's another team in Orange Lutheran history that can say they lined up against the eight best schools in the state of California – no divisions, just the best – competed at the same exact time and won," said Crawford. "It's extremely special."
 
During the race, Preus was perched at the top of the stands, as he would often do during big meets, so he could have a birds-eye view of the track, without any distractions. Since the boys 4x400 relay is the last event of the meet, he distinctly remembers the sky exploding with fireworks as Dravis crossed the finish line and "Orange Lutheran" flashed across the screen. It was a fitting celebration for the new champions.
 
"As a coach, there's an enormous sense of pride in the fact that our coaching staff and our athletes had gotten there," said Preus. "When I look back on my coaching career, this is one of the moments I'll never forget."
 
The Legacy: To be the best in the state at anything is a remarkable achievement. But to get four high school student athletes to come together and perform at exactly the right moment is something truly special.
 
Brown, Dravis, Huss and Wilson and their families made significant sacrifices to be part of that historic moment, including the seniors missing their own high school graduation ceremony. But they look back on it all with nothing but gratitude for the coaches and each other.
 
"It's a real humbling experience," said Dravis. "It was a full team effort from the coaches down, just putting it together that night for us. We figured out how to do it every time we ran, so it's a testament to the guys on the team."
 
"We're extremely grateful for the sacrifice, the selflessness and the love that Coach Thomas, Coach Crawford and Coach Preus shared with us for us to be able to do something special in Orange Lutheran's history," added Brown.
 
And the same way they arrived on OLu's campus, each of the four student athletes went their own direction after graduation.
 
Huss competed in track and field at the community college level and spent several years in Oregon before relocating to his current home in Austin, Texas, where he manages a famous steakhouse.
 
Brown went on to Stanford to play football and had a brief stint with the Cincinnati Bengals before discovering his love for coaching. He is in his fourth season on the football coaching staff at Cal.
 
Wilson attended Harvard where he competed in both football and track. He spent time as a Teach for America Corps member and is currently in Southern California working in professional development staffing.
 
And Dravis started off at West Point before transferring to Azuza Pacific where he played football for three years. He now lives in Austin, Texas, and owns a floor installation and restoration company.
 
Although they don't communicate or see each other as often as they'd like, whenever they do reconnect, they pick up right where they left off, something they credit to the OLu teachers and coaches who shaped them during that stage of their lives.
 
And without a doubt, they all agree they wouldn't be the men they are today without the experiences and community they found at Orange Lutheran High School.
 
"I always think back about that journey and how it shaped me into the person that I am now, and my relationship with God, and I'm so thankful for everything that school provided," said Huss. "Everything they had – sports, academics, the culture, the family, God – it was the perfect package. I'm forever grateful."
Explore HOF Explore Hall of Fame Members