Lotharp has his finest hour at 3A state meet

The week of the 3A state championship meet, P.J. Lotharp didn’tneed motivation.

But his mother, Tiny Chambers decided she would offer her son some words of inspiration.

The Sun Valley junior knew exactly what she meant and took it to heart.

“My mom is always messing with me and challenging me, and she told me that she thought I had the potential to win four gold medals, but she didn’t think I could really do it,” Lotharp said with a laugh. “But she knew what she was doing. She knew it would make me even more motivated.”

On May 8, Lotharp had a 3A state track meet performance for the ages. He earned four state titles, including 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the 4X100-meter relay and the 4X200-meter relay. He also was the 3A state championship’s most valuable player and ran personal best times in each of his events.

“After regionals, I knew P.J. was a little bit down,” said Chambers, referring to Lotharp’s second-place finish in the 100 and third-place finish in the 200 at the 3A Midwest Regional. “Honestly, I believed he had the potential to win all four events at states, but I knew if I challenged him a bit it would be more motivating. I knew he felt he had something to prove. I thought that would bring out the best in him.”

First, Lotharp won the 100-meter dash, setting the 10-year old, all-classification state meet record with a time of 10.35 seconds. He shattered the mark set by West Brunswick High’s Jerek Hewett (10.40 in 2005). Lotharp’s 100-meter dash time is the state’s best this season and the No. 2 time (wind-aided) in the nation (according to usamilesplit.com).

After hardly catching his breath, Lotharp ran the anchor leg for the 4X200-meter relay team (with teammates Albert Funderburke, Fabrice Funderburke and Isaiah Hicklin), coming from behind to win the championship in the state’s second best time of the season, 1:27.67.

Later in the day, Lotharp and the same relay group won the state title in the 4X100-meter run in a school-record 42.01 (second-best time in state this season).

After that, Lotharp actually got a three-event break (400, 300-meter hurdles and 800) before winning his final event, the 200-meter dash, in a photo finish, as he ran the state’s best time this season, 21.54.

The full gravity of what the 17-year-old Lotharp accomplished still hasn’t hit him.

“It all feels a bit unreal, even now,” said Lotharp, referring to the state meet, where he also won the NCHSAA’s sportsmanship award. “At the time when I won the 100, I had no idea it was a state record. I was just focused on my next event. I was so focused that I felt like I was the only one on the track running for time.”

His mom had similar feelings.

“I taped all races and I’ve watched them a lot and it’s still hard to believe,” Chambers said. “To witness it in person was even better.”

Sun Valley track coach, Michael Williams, said Lotharp came into the 3A state meet as a man on a mission.

“He came into the state meet with a purpose of breaking records and he accomplished that purpose,” said Williams, whose Sun Valley boys’ team finished as the 3A state runner-up to Marvin Ridge. “When he came out in the 100, there were a lot of fast guys out there, but he just blew away the field. At that moment, I knew he had a chance to do something special. But even after watching him win all four events, it’s still hard to believe that he did all of that in about an hour. … Any normal person would have been tired, but he was so focused, I don’t think he even thought about that until he was done.”

The 5-foot-6, 150-pound speedster already was on the radar of many college coaches, but his record-setting performance vaulted him into a different level of attention.

“It’s all very exciting and I hope to have as many great (college) options as I can,” Lotharp said. “But I still have one more year of high school (track) to get even better.”

Lotharp’s focus now shifts to the football field, where he hopes to have a similar breakout performance as one of the Spartans’ primary running backs, but he’s still trying to enjoy what he accomplished this month.

One of his biggest motivators is keeping pace with his family’s state championship track tradition. Lotharp now has five state championships, after winning the 3A, 55-meter dash state title indoors in February.

That ties him with his father, Kevin Lotharp, who won five titles at Forest Hills High. Meanwhile, his older brother, Jamael Lotharp, also won two state titles (both relays) for Forest Hills. His mother also won a state championship at Forest Hills.

While Chambers often reminded P.J. that he didn’t have a state championship to his credit until this winter, now he has five.

“Normally, I wouldn’t brag about it,” said Lotharp, laughing. “But I might have say something to them, just to mess with them.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Lotharp has his finest hour at 3A state meet."