Kyle Garland Feeding Off Philly's Sports Successes

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Philadelphia is on top of the sports world and Germantown Academy senior Kyle Garland is savoring every moment of the sunny glory. 

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As the Penn Relays Carnival revs up for its 124th running, Philly’s own legend in the making is preparing to compete in the nation’s grandest annual track and field meet for the third time. 

“It’s a huge meet for me,” Garland said. “Prior to me competing (for the first time) sophomore year, I was going to the meets. The atmosphere there, I love that feel (at Franklin Field).”

Garland has set himself apart as one of the country’s brightest young decathletes. The University of Georgia commit aspires to one day represent the U.S. at the Olympic Games. 

This week, he will compete in the high jump and also run on Germantown Academy’s 4x400 relay. 

The Penn Relays will play host to teams from hundreds of schools up and down the Eastern seaboard. The 34 high school teams coming from Jamaica will also make considerable noise by Saturday. 

But everyone who gathers this weekend for track and field in Philadelphia is apt to find a city riding high on the success of its sports teams. 

The Eagles are Super Bowl champions. 

The Villanova Wildcats are NCAA basketball kings. 

The 76ers can close out Miami on Tuesday in the first round of the NBA playoffs. 

Heck, the Phillies are 14-7. Third-best in the National League right now. 

“It’s great to see that success that we’ve been having,” Garland said. “It’s ricocheting off one Philly team to another. It’s exciting just to see Philly having an up year in professional and college sports.”

Garland, the two-time New Balance Nationals Indoor pentathlon champion, would love to move up on the all-time high school list in the decathlon by June. He hopes to make the U.S. team that will compete at the IAAF World U-20 Championships in Finland this summer.

Garland has long been an Eagles fan. He watched the Super Bowl at a T.G.I. Friday’s and celebrated with a restaurant full of excited, long-suffering fans. 

“It was surreal to see the streamers come down and see the commissioner hand the Lombardi Trophy to our team,” Garland said. 

Then, he had a personal interest in Villanova’s run to a second NCAA basketball title in three years. The Garlands met the family of Villanova’s Omari Spellman on a vacation cruise and a friendship was born. The next year, the two families shared another cruise.

“We were actually swaying him to come to Villanova,” Garland said of Spellman. “Knowing somebody on the team, we were elated to see the outcome of the (title) game.”

Garland’s own sports season has planned to peak in June at the USATF Junior Outdoor Championships in Bloomington, Ind. 

He’d like to record personal bests in as many of the 10 decathlon events as possible at that meet.

A 6-11 (2.11m) high jumper, he has driven his best time in the 110-meter hurdles down to 13.69 this spring. He has also thrown 182-1 (55.49m) in the javelin this spring, and had a best mark of 54-3 (16.53m) indoors in the shot put. 

“I’ve been working on getting all 10 events in (competitively) throughout the season as a way to get more comfortable,” he said. “I'd like to get them squared away before U.S. Juniors. If I stay healthy, strong and powerful, and take one event at a time, I think I can PR in almost every event.”

And Philadelphia would have yet another champion.