Brodey Hasty Heading Toward A Big Finish to HS Career

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Brodey Hasty’s status as an all-time prep distance running great, and beloved Tennesseean, were both confirmed late Saturday night at the Music City Distance Carnival in Nashville.

The 16th annual event ended with an opportunity for Hasty to cut loose in the 3,000 meters – by himself – with a cadre of pacers that included former NCAA steeplechase champion Mason Ferlic and Olympic medalist Leo Manzano.

The crowd moved onto the track to cheer for Hasty and he delivered. The recent graduate of Brentwood High dug deep for a 59-second final 400 meters and crossed the finish line in 8 minutes, 0.92 seconds.

That’s the second-fastest 3K in prep history behind German Fernandez and third-fastest if you include Drew Hunter’s indoor record of 7:59.33.  

Next, Hasty is scheduled to race at the Brooks PR Invitational on Friday in Seattle. He’ll run in the 800 meters to sharpen and be fresh for the 1,500 meters at the Portland Track Festival two days later.

Last year, he won the 2-mile at Brooks with a sterling 8:45.95.

WATCH THE BROOKS PR INVITATIONAL LIVE ON FRIDAY

Hasty grew up playing a variety of sports – in Utah.

As a middle school runner, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Gavin, Brodey attended races that included Casey Clinger and Grant Gardner (now at Springville High).

“American Fork was probably 30 minutes away from me,” Hasty said. “I have a few old funny pictures. (Gardner and I) have an old rivalry. Almost every cross country race we went against each other.” 

Hasty was small and compact and ran on his toes. He played baseball, and also did football for two years, but it was a Colorado running camp in the summer of 2013 that locked him in as a distance runner. 

“I was one of the slower kids and the second-youngest kid there,” Hasty said of the 40-day running camp. “Twenty of the days were up at Crested Butte, Colorado. I just fell in love with it. Back then I didn’t have to worry about if I was running some (number of) miles. It’s just, let’s go do some miles in the middle of the woods.”

Hasty loved that unlike football or baseball where you might meet and talk to just your teammates, in running you could make friends with everybody.

Less than a year later, the Hasty family moved to Brentwood, Tenn. as Brodey was wrapping up the eighth grade and beginning to prepare for high school.

That’s when Brodey met coach Guy Avery for the first time. 

“He came over to me after practice and said, ‘Coach, what should I do?’” Avery remembered. “The first thing I gave him was 8 (times) 200 in 37 (seconds), because he complained that he couldn’t break five minutes in the mile." 

Avery laughs now that his initial reaction to that was – “Oh, bullcrap.” 

Avery could already see an athletic runner with a muscular build in Brodey.

Within 10 weeks, Hasty ran 4:36 for the mile and then 9:47 for two miles.

Hasty got to work that summer and by the fall of his freshman cross country season at Brentwood, he already began to catch up with his brother Gavin, a senior who went on to run for the University of Montana.

Brodey took a quantum leap that year, maturing into arguably the best freshman in the country.

As a freshman, Hasty was ninth at NXN Southeast in a sizzling 15:13 over a hilly course. The following spring he ran 4:19.85 for a full mile and 9:16.19 in the 3,200 meters. 

The progress continued under Avery’s watchful eye.

As a sophomore, Hasty zoomed all the way to seventh place at Nike Cross Nationals.

During track season, he lowered his 3,200 time to 9:01.96 and his mile time to 4:09.59. 

Hasty’s junior year put him on the all-time lists. He became one of only three runners in prep history to run 8:45 both indoors and out in the 2-mile. He also became the third-fastest junior in the mile, behind Jim Ryun and Alan Webb.

After his first indoor national title, a convoluted conflict arose between the school administration and the parents and athletes who supported Avery.

Hasty, teammate Scott Thompson, and other top runners – and their families – opted to stay loyal to Avery and run independent of Brentwood High.

Hasty traded the sanctioned schools meets for longer blocks of training and selected meets to race outside the school structure.

Unfortunately, he had a bad fall on a downhill trail on one of his college visits. It knocked his lumbar spine out of place, and was set back for six weeks.

Despite a few setbacks and disappointments, Hasty has no regrets.

Hasty was the favorite going into NXN and got outkicked by Aidan Troutner of Timpview UT in the final 200 meters.

During the indoor season Hasty was ready to break the four-minute barrier in the men’s B mile at the NYRR Millrose Games, but pacer Mikey Brannigan inadvertently stepped back onto the track and almost knocked him to the ground midway through the race. Hasty was separated from the pack and negative-split a 1:58.8 but ran 4:00.05.

“Point-oh-five is 12 inches,” Avery said with a smile.

There is a genuine sweetness in Hasty’s disposition. He’s kind and friendly.

And when things don’t go quite his way – last summer’s political storm at the school or missing sub-four by inches – Hasty finds the bright side of things.

“It’s something I can learn from.” That’s his consistent attitude.

Earlier this spring, Hasty was on a training run when he felt a twinge of tightness in the lateral arch of his foot. 

He reported it right away and went in to see a doctor. There was no injury, but it felt strange, and Avery didn’t want to take any chances.

They decided to spend three weeks training in a pool to keep his cardiovascular engine purring.

“The number one thing is staying healthy,” Avery said. “We always want to prevent any setbacks at all. We’re always going to protect the athlete and be on the cautious side.”

Coming back out of the pool, Hasty had to catch up a little bit and recover his natural stride.

“He’s a forefoot striker which can be a great advantage, but I think it takes someone like that a little bit more time to get back to his optimal biomechanics.”

Hasty ran a rust-buster mile in Atlanta in 4:07 as he and Avery were deciding whether to accept an opportunity to run at the Prefontaine Classic in the International (B) mile.

In Eugene two weeks ago, Hasty hung on to the back of the pack but finished last in a fast field, running 4:04.53.   

While he was disappointed, Hasty was not discouraged.

“It got away from me when the pace increased so quickly,” he said. “In the future, I’d love to do better.”

Hasty, who will run at Oregon next year, simply went back home and talked things over with Avery and decided to re-group for a 3,000 meters in Nashville, as one of their season goals was to run a fast 3,000 or 2-Mile.

Now, it’s on to Seattle and Portland.