If you know Ryan McCormack, you know he isn’t one to put all of his eggs in one basket. On his entrepreneurial side, the Wayland High School senior wears many hats. He is a barber to many of his friends while also working as a landscaper and occasional babysitter. So with indoor and outdoor track, his interest in competing in the pentathlon and decathlon comes as no surprise. It’s not the way he started as a freshman — rarely does a high schooler come in ready to compete in five or 10 events — but as he found success trying different events throughout the seasons and years, he realized he could help the team in events where not all schools even have an entry.
“For me, competing in the decathlon gives me the opportunity to do really well in some events and not so well in others without throwing away the whole meet,” McCormack said. “I can do poorly in one event then have redemption in the other nine to gain those points back. It’s much more of a process of an event than a one-and-done.”
But it’s not like he was put in the multi-event discipline because he could grab some points for the Warriors in meets. He has excelled in numerous events, with school records falling as fast as his 100-meter times.
“He’s one of the most focused and committed athletes I’ve ever worked with,” said Allison LaClaire, who coaches McCormack during both indoor and outdoor track. “He’s dialed in and does his homework in order to get better. When he said he wanted to be multi-eventer — and he was very serious about it — I believed him.”
McCormack capped off his senior indoor season this winter by taking first place in the long jump and 55-meter hurdles, and third in the high jump during the Dual County League (DCL) meet. At the Division 4 state meet, he came home with a second-place finish in the long jump (he was nursing a foot injury which limited his events). And at the Meet of Champions (all divisions), he finished in 17th place in the long jump. One more inch would have seen him jump to a 13th-place finish.
His effort and results were recognized when the coaches in the league voted him the DCL Male Athlete of the Season for all sports.
“I started building multi-event athletes before Ryan, but I can’t remember another athlete like this,” LaClaire said.
McCormack qualified for the nationals in the pentathlon where he impressed with a 10th-place finish. “It was such an eye-opening experience competing against the best guys in the country,” he said. “Even though I placed 10th, I got close to the points I got at the states.”
McCormack hasn’t slowed down in his final high school season this spring. He captured the long jump and pole vault while posting a third-place finish in the 400 at the DCL meet. He nearly broke the school record in the long jump in the Division 4 state meet when his sixth-place leap of 22-7 was a quarter-inch short. He did, however, take home first place in the pole vault and fourth in the 400.
In his final high school meet in Massachusetts on June 4-6 at the Meet of Champions (all divisions), McCormack set two personal bests and school records – 14’ 6” in the pole vault, which was good for first place, and 23′ 6.5″ in the long jump, in a fourth-place finish. McCormack also holds school records in the pentathlon and decathlon and is also one-tenth of a second from the best Wayland time in the 400 meters. He’ll close out his high school career at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals on June 18-20 at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I’ve definitely surprised myself through this experience,” McCormack said. “I had my goals for different events, and a lot of them I have surpassed. But I knew I could do it if I put the work in.”
McCormack’s accomplishments may never have happened had he not made some big decisions along the way. Growing up, he played many sports – baseball, basketball, soccer, and track. When he entered Wayland High School, his first difficult choice was to drop baseball and stick with the other three. By the end of his sophomore year, he lost the competitive feel for soccer and knew he had to quit basketball to commit to track and field completely. “That was a big change for me, from my sophomore to junior year, being very serious about track and dropping soccer and basketball,” he said.
The end of his sophomore year was also the time McCormack went to LaClaire and said he wanted to compete in the decathlon. She saw it in him but insisted he learn how to pole vault because she knew that it’s the hardest of the 10 events to learn. He listened and spent two days a week during the summer between sophomore and junior years at Natick High School at Patriot Pole Vault.
The hard work and difficult decisions have paid off, as he will continue his exploits at Boston University, a Division 1 track program. College wasn’t always in the cards. He was considering following and expanding some of his business ventures or taking a gap year. But when schools were serious about showing an interest in him, especially Division 1 programs, the realization of his success started to become a reality.
It was an interview at the University of Albany — where a cousin ran track and helped set up the meeting — that his future plans started to take a turn. “I was super skeptical of the whole recruiting experience,” he explained. “I thought, ‘Of course they don’t want me.’ But when they were pitching themselves to me instead of me pitching to them, it opened my eyes that a D1 school wanted me.”
