SPRINT SIBLINGS
Pickering’s Zion and Selah Brookes have big goals, and are in a hurry to get there
It’s a bit cool for sprint practice on a June night at St. Mary’s High School in Pickering, but Zion and Selah Brookes don’t show it.
The siblings are too focused to worry about temperatures in the single digits.
Zion, 16, is zeroed in on preparing for this weekend’s Ontario high school track and field championships at York University, where he’ll be ranked second in the 100 metres and 4x100-metre relay, and third in the 200. In fact, he’s No. 2 in all of Canada among 16-year-olds over 60 metres (best time, 7.14 seconds) and 200 (23.07 seconds) this indoor season, and picked up gold medals in the 100, 200 and 4x100 at the recent Lake Ontario Secondary School Athletics finals.
Selah, 12, is too young for the seniorlevel event at York, but planned to be there to support her brother. She’s ranked No. 1 among Grade 7 girls in the 60 and 200, and won both events at the recent under-14 indoor championships in Michigan.
Sprinting is a family affair in the Brookes household. It starts with father Randy, coach of the Gazelles Track and Field Club and owner of Running For Your Life Inc. He and wife Samantha, both accomplished track athletes in their day, say they saw their kids’ potential at a very early age.
“Even before (the Gazelles club) they both ran track,” says Randy Brookes, who greets newcomers with a sincere “How’s life?”
“I saw (the potential) and at the time I said it was great to be involved in the world of sports, because it can teach you things you may not see anywhere else. I ran track myself, and what it taught me is balance … between having fun and being serious, because there were times when I had to leave fun behind and get serious about training.”
Samantha Brookes ran track in college at Kansas and worked as a dishwasher to pay the bills early in her career. Like her husband, though, a hamstring injury ended her running ambitions. She went on to found Mortgages of Canada and become a leader in the brokerage field, knowledge she shares on her own YouTube show: Samantha TV.
Off the track, Zion and Selah share their father’s passion for music (Randy was once a rapper with the Juno-nominated Scarborough hip-hop group BrassMunk) and comic books (Dad has collected more than 10,000 over the years). Selah prefers Instagram over YouTube, posting videos of dance moves and some of her races to more than 2,000 followers, and her energy is contagious. She talks about major personal goals like they’re nothing out of the ordinary.
“I want to make it to the Olympics ... and be the fastest women alive.” SELAH BROOKES GRADE 7 SPRINTER
“I want to make it to the Olympics, the 100 and 200 metres, and be the fastest women alive and set world records,” Selah says when asked what she wants to accomplish. “And if I don’t go, I’d rather be a cardiologist.”
Getting where she wants to go will require dedication to training and a healthy diet — to a point.
“I like McDonald’s a lot,” says Selah, who goes to Terry Fox Public School, “but I get cramps in my legs, so I have to take magnesium, omegas and fish oils. (Dad is) on me when I need to take my vitamins and diet, and I have to take vitamins when sometimes I don’t want to … and I have to train hard, so that I have stamina and so that I don’t get injured.”
Watching Zion — whose recent 7.14-second 60 is posted on YouTube — as his sister speaks, it’s clear that he’s the more pensive of the two.
“I like reading and I like basketball and football, but I read comic books,” says Zion, who attends J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate in Ajax. “I like superheroes, the Avengers and stuff like that.”
The siblings are identical when it comes to the goal of one day representing Canada at the Summer Olympics. Their dad once trained with track greats Maurice Greene and Ato Boldon at UCLA, under legendary coach John Smith, so he knows what it takes to get to that level. The common thread that binds Randy and Samantha, as elite athletes and successful professionals, has inspired the next generation.
“He’s a good person and he’s taught me many things,” Zion says of his father. “Pretty much the way I run is from him.”