Again in January, when Revac Banfield arrived dwelling dissatisfied at his efficiency in an indoor monitor and area meet in Spokane, a handwritten be aware sat in his bed room.
It was from his mom, Camara Banfield, who like her son, was a highschool state champion sprinter. She selected to convey her phrases on pen and paper in an effort to higher communicate from the center, urging her son to search out his pleasure and to do what makes him joyful.
The Columbia River Excessive senior stored the letter.
“It helped me realize,” he stated, “that very terrible loss for me wasn’t the end of the world, as it felt like it was at the time.”
Because the reigning Class 2A state champion at 100 and 200 meters, Revac Banfield is open about his struggles coping with pressures and expectations on the monitor.
Final spring, outsiders wouldn’t have guessed the pressure-packed season Revac felt on his option to turning into Columbia River’s first state champion within the sprints by the use of setting faculty information.
However clearing psychological hurdles is all a part of his personal state championship path.
Mother’s golden legacy
When her kids have been sufficiently old to start extracurricular actions, Camara Banfield by no means pushed them to trace and area. They ultimately discovered their approach there — with genetics on their facet, too.
As Camara Jones at Mountain View Excessive, she gained state titles within the 100, 200 and 400 meters with school-record instances that also stay immediately. Her 1990 state title-winning time within the 400 set a large-classification state meet report (54.58 seconds) that stood till 1998.
As a junior in 1989, she scored 36 of Mountain View’s 45 factors to assist the Thunder seize the Class AAA state workforce title. It was the primary state title in a workforce sport for Evergreen Public Faculties at a time when the district had solely two excessive colleges.
“It was phenomenal,” longtime Mountain View monitor and area head coach Bob Procive stated.
It’s been 35 years since Procive final coached the athlete he calls one of the best to ever come by the college — throughout all sports activities, he stated — behind a top-notch work ethic and unmatched velocity.
“There were times she would do the workouts with the guys,” stated Procive, who’s in his thirty sixth and closing season because the Thunder’s head coach. “She really pushed herself. … She was tough.”
When reflecting on her monitor and area profession that ended with a gold medal on the 1995 World Championships, Camara spoke of the psychological house a monitor and area athlete may be in. With out hesitation, profitable on the monitor was enjoyable, she stated. However different points? Not a lot.
“It’s a crazy, mental place to be, and it’s kind of lonely, honestly,” stated Camara Banfield, a Clark County Superior Courtroom Choose since 2021 and former felony prosecutor. “It’s not like different sports activities — it’s type of lonely.
“But I love what track did for me. I love what I learned about myself.”
At Oregon, she earned All-America standing 4 instances, gained three Pacific-10 Convention titles and set a convention and college report in her specialty — 400 meters.
She was inducted into Oregon’s Corridor of Fame in 2008.
However earlier than profitable gold within the ladies’s 4×400 relay on the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, she referred to as dwelling from a payphone to ask her mom a well-recognized query.
Is it OK to lose?
Renewed ardour, pleasure
That query is now transposed right into a sentence that gives consolation to her son, Revac, and daughter, Olivia, a sophomore sprinter and lengthy jumper at River.
It’s OK to lose.
“I do take it to heart; it’s not something I just listen to and move on with,” Revac stated. “I actually believe what she says, and she’s always been there for me like that.”
On the annual Spokane Excessive Faculty Indoor Invitational in January, Revac positioned fifteenth within the males’s 200 (23.45) with one of many slowest instances of his profession.
Seven months earlier, he exited Mount Tahoma Excessive Faculty in Tacoma as a state champion — individually and as a workforce. He helped River to its first workforce title in boys monitor and area behind career-best instances in 2024 that ranked within the high 10 throughout all classifications.
“That was the first time I lost so badly, and it really set me for a bit of a loop,” he stated.
That, partly, is why he entered the 2025 highschool season in what he described as an unhealthy mindset. From the inner-pressures of being an elite sprinter to expectations outsiders could have due to his velocity genes, Revac felt it.
As this spring has progressed, nevertheless, so has the renewed ardour and pleasure for monitor and area behind an improved psychological house.
“It’s helping me when it comes to improvement in times as well as improvement in joy,” he stated. “I can enjoy it more now that I know exactly what it means for me and what my future might entail.”
Her son’s phrases tugged at Camara Banfield’s feelings. Finally 12 months’s state meet, she watched her son win state titles in the identical occasions she did in 1989.
However it’s how he gained that makes mother proudest: trusting himself when the strain reached its peak.
Getting into state, Revac had 2A’s high time within the 200, second-best within the 100, and gained each race in 2024, excluding the distinguished Oregon Relays.
“That’s what sports does,” she stated. “Sports give you an opportunity to learn the hard things about yourself. It’s not really track; it’s how you respond to adversity and just finding what that means for you.”
River sprints and hurdles coach Sean McDonald stated what units Revac aside will not be solely the best way to be a sprinter, but in addition coming by greatest when instances are hardest. The sprinter overcame a quadricep harm within the closing weeks of the 2024 season.
“He comes up with the way to get it done more than I’ve seen in a kid in a long time,” McDonald stated. … “He has fun, but when it comes down to the races, he’s all business. He’s very cerebral about things that he does and how he does it.”
The stretch run
This spring, Revac Banfield is starting to warmth up on the monitor because the calendar flips to Might.
At River’s John Ingram Twilight on April 18, he ran season-best instances within the 100 (10.99) and 200 (22.15), and anchored the 4×100 relay to 2A’s sixth-best time (43.48). He’s one in all seven sprinters this spring to clock a sub-11-second 100.
However nothing offers Revac larger pleasure than ending his highschool profession on his phrases. Most significantly, with out strain.
As a result of in any case, whereas profitable is enjoyable, it’s OK to lose.
“I really want it to end well,” he stated. “I want to feel like I tried my hardest and have no regrets.”
