Slear heading to Liberty
BUTLER TWP — After helping to break eight relay records and playing a key role in Butler’s indoor and outdoor state championships, Lucas Slear isn’t exactly resting on his laurels.
“He’s a runner who won’t shy away from a challenge,” Golden Tornado sprint coach Fred Pinto said. “And he’s going to be challenged.”
Slear, one of 13 seniors on Butler’s track and field team to move on to college athletics, will continue his academic and track career at Liberty University in Virginia. He plans to major in Sports Management.
Liberty is four-time defending Atlantic Sun Conference champion in indoor track and has won the league’s outdoor title three years in a row.
“I briefly looked at Grove City and Penn State, buit I was pretty much locked in on Liberty from the start,” Slear said. “I’ve been down there five or six times and it’s a great campus. The program for my course of study is good there and the (track) coaches will really help me.”
Not that he’s needed much help thus far.
Slear lettered four years in indoor track and golf at Butler. He lettered three years in outdoor track. While his best individual event was the 400 meters — his time of 49.9 seconds ranks among the Golden Tornado’s all-time top 10 — Slear was particularly effective in relay events.
He ran a leg of the Tornado’s school-record breaking 4x200, 4x400, distance medley and sprint medley relays in indoor track, along with the Swedish sprint medley, 4x200, 4x400 and sprint medley relay in outdoor.
“He’s got great feet,” Butler boys track coach Mike Seybert said. “He’s one of those guys we started out in the 800 and he filtered on down. He ran a great leg on our 4x4, then he excelled on our 4x2.
“Coach Pinto wanted to try him in the 4x1 and I figured there was no way. But he helped us there, too. Guys love running relays because they’re out there with their friends.”
Slear has definite goals for his track career at Liberty. He wants to eventually make Liberty’s all-time top 10 in the 400 meters during his years there and wants to run a leg of the Flames’ 4x400 relay as a freshman.
“I want to make the biggest impact there that I can,” he said.
“That track program is perfect for him,” Seybert said. “Lucas will fit right into the mix there.”
Slear said he began running track in seventh grade “because that’s what all the klids did then. I started getting better at it in eighth grade and by the time I went into ninth grade, I knew it was going to be my main sport.”
Among Slear’s accolades in high school included being part of the 4x400 relay that snapped a 50-year-old school record. The quartet actually snapped the record twice, running the event in 3 minutes, 18.43 seconds at the Penn Relays and in 3:18.39 at the PIAA outdoor meet. He also won the Emil Rosenweig Award for outstanding senior leadership.
“That’s a very prestigious award that dates back to the 1960s,” Seybert said.
Slear earned four All-American honors in relays at the Adidas Indoor Nationals and New Balance Outdoor Nationals. He was part of the sprint medley relay unit that won the Adidas Indoor national title.
“My favorite moments in high school were breaking the 4x4 school record because that’s my favorite event, and our team winning the outdoor state title, Slear said.
Liberty head coach Lance Bingham has been back with the Flames for two years after spending four seasons as coach at Abilene Christian. Bingham was an assistant track coach at Liberty for 18 years before that.
In the last two years, cross country and track combined,. he has been named ASUN Coach of the Year eight times and has produced 10 All-Americans.
Pinto sees Slear only adding to Liberty’s success on the track.
“Since his junior year, Lucas has just taken off,” Pinto said. “Starting out in the 800 helped him. That was his base and he showed he can ruin the short sprints as well.”
Slear said he’s hopeful of landing a job with a pro sports franchise upon college graduation.
“I’d prefer working for a pro football team, but I would take any position with a pro team,” he said. “I love sports. I want to stay in sports.”
