Athlete of the Issue: D’Angelo Stocker

D’Angelo Stocker breaks records on the track for Malvern Prep and in the Inter-Ac.

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Stocker started running track when he was around twelve or thirteen, and over the years has steadily improved on his form and times, allowing him to break records for his school, the Inter-Ac, and to place at the Adidas Indoor Nationals.

“I started running track at a pretty young age for a West Chester track club, and then went on to run in middle school and high school,” Stocker said.

Running track for so long, Stocker reflects on why he has stayed committed to the sport.

“I always played a bunch of sports growing up, and track was one of the ones that I liked, and I’ve been running ever since,” he said.

Running during the winter and spring seasons, Stocker focuses on short distance running.

“My main events for indoor track are the 60 meter and the 200 meter dash, and in the spring season, for outdoors, I run the 100 meter and the 200 meter dash,” he said.

Recently, Stocker ran at the Adidas indoor nationals meet, where he placed sixth in the 60 meter dash running 6.87 seconds, breaking the Malvern Prep record of 6.96 seconds, which also happens to be the Inter-Ac record.

“I had a main goal to beat my previous record, and I was really [motivated] because last year we didn’t have a season, so this year I had to make up for lost time; I didn’t really think I was going to break the record, but I did, and I’m happy about that,” he said.

Stocker has worked very hard during his high school years to better his form and times, and his coach, Mr. Mike Koenig, is focused preparing Stocker for nationals and other important track meets.

“In the winter we couldn’t do a lot of workouts outside, so one of the main things we focused on was his block starts. [D’Angelo] was already strong from the football season, so he was explosive, and had good top end speeds, so we wanted to focus on the starts of his races,” Koenig said.“During the winter we took our [starting] blocks inside, and we almost exclusively spent our time working on his block starts to try and better prepare him for the bigger and more important track meets.”

Going into the future, Stocker wants to improve his time, and he already has goals set for this spring season, and his senior season next year.

“One of my goals is beating my record in the 100 meter, which is 10.88, so I’m hoping this year I’ll be able to beat it, he said.”