In March of 2007 at a poorly surfaced track on the far east side of San Antonio, my editor tells me he witnessed the coolest sporting moment he’s ever been even loosely a part of. I’ve regrettably let him share it here:

Rynell Parson – a then-sophomore who was a local sprint phenom – was set to run an early season 100m at a low-key invitational. He’d been running fast enough that even the track-ambivalent local press had taken notice, and there was a lot of buzz around him.

On that overcast morning, the wind howled at the sprinters’ backs and the official tasked with hand-timing Parson’s lane must have had an itchy trigger finger, because he was clocked at 9.99. The atmosphere was electric leading up to the start, frenzied as he put nearly half a second on the field, and borderline rapturous when his time was announced. (You can try to make out the scene from what might be the first YouTube video ever posted here.)

Even though the time was definitely not legitimate, I still think about that race semi-regularly, 17 years later. You just don’t forget seeing someone run really, really fast.

This is all to say that I hope the crowd assembled at last week’s Pure Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida appreciated what they were treated to when 17-year-old Christian Miller ran a 9.93 (+1.6). (Everything was above board, wind- and timing-wise, and video technology has improved considerably since 2007 so enjoy the race here.)