Brian Luteyn excels in hurdles
Brian Luteyn has all the attributes of an exceptional hurdler. At 6-foot-5, he has great height and length — perfect for leaping over three-foot hurdles. He’s fast, another necessary trait for races that last 110 and 300 meters, respectively. He also has terrific footwork and coordination, a must for an event that requires a combination of jumping, timing and sprinting. So his natural talent was what drew him to the event when he joined the Fond du Lac boys track and field team as a freshman, right? Nope. With the hurdling events happening early in track meets, he just wanted to get done quicker so he could go play basketball.
“Hurdling is one of the first events and at the time I wanted to get out of the meets as soon as I could to go play AAU (basketball),” Luteyn said with a laugh. “It ended up working out pretty well I guess.” It certainly did, as Luteyn — now a senior — has a legitimate shot to compete for a berth to the WIAA state track and field in the 110 and 300-meter hurdles, as well as the 1,600-meter relay, after advancing to sectionals in the 110 last year. But his reason for trying the hurdles, one where it was simply more convenient for a different sport, is an indication as to the kind of all-around athlete that Luteyn is. And it’s even more telling that he has shot at state for a sport that was pretty much an afterthought for him as a freshman.
Luteyn has showcased his natural athletic ability in three sports over the course of his high school career and his senior year has been something special.
In football, Luteyn was one of the best wide receivers in the state, catching 47 passes for 921 yards and 10 touchdowns in earning first team All-Valley Football Association South honors as well as a selection to the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association All-Region team. With his height and speed, along with a great connection with quarterback Jack Nejedlo, Luteyn was at times nearly un-coverable.
“My height obviously helps a little bit. Jack (Nejedlo) and I really had good chemistry,” Luteyn said. “We’ve played together for a while and we know what to do, where he wants to put the ball and stuff. The coaches really stress the route-running and how important that was, to be able to get open obviously. Just a little bit of everything I guess.”
In the winter, Luteyn averaged 10.3 points and 4.9 rebounds per game as a forward on the boys basketball team in earning an honorable mention selection on the All-Fox Valley Association squad. While the season didn’t go quite as smoothly for the basketball team as it did for football, Luteyn helped keep the rebuilding Cardinals competitive in the ultra-tough FVA.
“It was obviously a rebuilding year with the new coach and we only had three seniors and a whole lot of sophomores and juniors and even a couple freshmen,” Luteyn said. “It was obviously tough, especially in the beginning when we started on a six-game losing streak or something like that. We tried to stay together and not get down on each other. Trying to figure out the program and what Coach Ziebell wanted us to do. Later on in the season, we started to figuring things out and playing better basketball. It didn’t end great, but hopefully from here on out the guys are going to get it and work and get some success.”
Now, in the spring, he’s hoping to cap off his prep athletic career with a trip to state. It’s no accident that he’s in a good position to do that in the hurdles. Of course, he has the stature and natural skill that only come with genes. But what made him successful in football and basketball — and the skills he learned and honed in those sports — has transferred to the track.
Running routes in football is all about timing and form. Same thing with hurdles.
“Both in football and track, you’ve got to have the perfect form,” Luteyn said. “One little thing wrong can affect everything. If your release on a route is a little bit off, then it could throw off the entire route and the timing of it. In hurdles, if you don’t have one thing perfectly right, you could hit the hurdle and it will slow you down.”
How about basketball? Well, working in the paint, developing post moves, dribbling — it’s all about footwork and coordination, which Luteyn has improved since he was first called up to the varsity squad as a freshman. “There’s a lot of footwork. That’s really key in basketball, being able to know how to pivot and use your body to score and stuff like that,” he said. “The physical aspect of football is really key too and being able to use your body to box somebody out or whatever else it comes to. Same thing in track…quickness and flexibility.”
As high school athletes strive for college scholarships, more and more of them become specialized in specific sports, devoting year-round attention to it through club teams, camps and other activities beyond the varsity season. Luteyn is the perfect case study of someone who has used his natural abilities to succeed at a high level in multiple sports and has become a better overall athlete because of it. “It really helps being in all the sports because some guys, they only play one or two sports; they have a certain skill set and with having three sports, you can really get so many different skills and bring them all together,” Luteyn said. “You become a much better overall athlete I feel like.”
Fond du Lac boys track and field coach TJ Severson agrees, pointing out that all the sports Luteyn played have helped one another in some way. “He’s a three-sport athlete and when you’re in three sports, you’re going to get better athletically,” Severson said. “He’s grown athletically every year since he was a freshman. … What’s great about Brian is one sport led to another sport. He knew he should go out for track because it’s going to help him in football. He tied it in with basketball because it helped us pick hurdles for him because it was going to lead to more AAU practice. All of his sports were intertwined with each other.”
Even without specializing in a sport, Luteyn will still be competing at the college level — playing basketball for St. Norbert College in De Pere next year. But first, Luteyn has some unfinished business in high school. In a strange way, basketball sort of led him to the hurdles. Now before he goes to play hoops in college, he wants to end his prep career hurdling with the best of them at the state meet in La Crosse. “It would be a lot of fun because I know a lot of the guys I’m friends with, they’ve gone before and it’s just a lot of fun,” he said. “The environment and the crowd and they get to eat as much food as they want. It would just be a good way to end off high school.”