Hillsborough native starring at St. Benedict’s Prep
by John Beisser, Sports Writer
Had he made the easier decision and followed his friends to Hillsborough High School four years ago, Brandon Jarrett would now be a household name within the Hillsborough athletic community.
Jarrett, however, chose to blaze a different path, literally and figuratively. A soccer standout during his formative years and always an amazingly gifted student, Jarrett, following many discussions with his parents, opted to attend prestigious St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark.
Fast forward four years and Jarrett is now unequivocally the number one high school distance runner in the state of New Jersey, and one of the top 10 scholastic runners in the entire nation. Now a senior and on the heels of a sensational sixth-place finish in the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships in San Diego Dec. 8, Jarrett has his choice of attending virtually any university in the nation.
Just as the decision to attend high school in Newark was a difficult one, Jarrett is now facing another tough choice in selecting a college. His two favorites are Ivy League institutions Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Although these two top schools head his list, there are many other suitors who remain in heavy pursuit of the local prodigy, including the University of Colorado, Stanford and Georgetown, among others. He has received so much mail from college coaches that the letters and envelopes fill up two huge boxes in the Hillsborough home where he lives with his parents.
Just a few short years ago, there was no inkling that Jarrett would become one of the nation’s most sought-after recruits. In the spring of 2003, as Jarrett was completing the eighth grade at Hillsborough Middle School, he and his parents spent countless hours researching and discussing what high school would be the best fit.
”We were attracted to the great academic reputation of St. Benedict’s and we also learned that they had a perennially nationally-ranked soccer program,” Jarrett said. “So, my decision was 50-50, based on academics factors and soccer equally. Track was the furthest thing from my mind.
”Not going to Hillsborough High was the hardest decision of my life,” he continued. “I still have many friends in town but it was tough.”
Instead of simply taking the bus or car-pooling with friends to Hillsborough High, the 17-year old Jarrett, who has an older brother 20 years his senior, is up at the crack of dawn, in time to pile into his father’s car for the long trek to Newark. Each day, Peter Jarrett, an executive at Schering-Plough in Summit, drives Brandon the 40 miles to school, puts in a full work day and then picks Brandon up at school after practice. Together, they make the long drive back to Hillsborough.
”My parents have made a lot of sacrifices for me,” said Jarrett, whose mother Alice owns her own jewelry store in Somerville.
When he entered his freshman year, Jarrett was “all of 5-feet-4 and maybe weighed 100 pounds,” said St. Benedict’s head track and field/cross country coach Marty Hannon.
His entrée to track was as accidental as it was innocuous. All incoming freshmen at St. Benedict’s are required to complete a fitness test. Jarrett had never before set foot on a track, but with a lung capacity and an overall endurance built up from many years of high-level soccer training, which included playing for club team that traveled to Europe one summer, Jarrett completed the one-mile run portion of the fitness test in a tidy 5:46. His effortless gait, and seemingly endless stamina, drew Hannon’s attention.
”He came up to me one day and asked if I was interested in running cross country,” said Jarrett, who now stands 5-10, tips the scales at a lithe 135 pounds, and has covered a mile in as fast as 4:13. “I’m not sure I’d ever heard of cross country. All I knew was soccer. I was committed to playing on the soccer team, so I told him that maybe I could go out for the winter track team and see how it goes.”
Soccer or track? Major decision number two in Jarrett’s short life was now upon him. Jarrett’s journey evokes the Bible verse, “To whom much is given, of him much will be required.” For when an individual is empowered with such rare all-around talent, it can serve as both a blessing and a curse.
Soon, however, the decision became obvious. Once Jarrett caught the running bug, it was goodbye soccer, hello track and field. That fall, Jarrett played his very last soccer game. The sport of soccer forever lost a talent who may have been good enough to go on to play in college. Soccer’s loss, however, was most definitely track and field’s gain, as Jarrett may one day rise to Olympic material, his potential is that off the charts.
”I had been playing soccer my whole life, so to give it up was extremely difficult,” Jarrett said. “But Coach Hannon saw something in me. So, basically, I had to trust him and take the risk.”
By the summer of 2004, on the eve of his sophomore year of high school, Jarrett was now a full-time track athlete. As his strength, endurance and technique kept getting better and better, his times kept getting lower and lower.
He quickly distinguished himself on the local scene, leaving the local competition in the dust. Ed Grant, a respected authority on the New Jersey high school track and field scene for decades, annually compiles the only all-state team which is open to all athletes in the state, regardless of which high school they attend. Last spring, Jarrett was named to Ed Grant’s 2006 All-State Cross Country First Team. Jarrett would soon test his mettle in local meets, then regional meets, on his way to the Nationals.
In the fall of 2006, as junior, Jarrett turned in an impressive eighth-place finish at the Foot Locker Northeast Regional at Van Cortlandt Park in Manhattan and followed up with a solid junior track season at St. Benedict’s, highlighted by a personal best 9:09 time in the 3,200. At this time, Jarrett’s profile was less than other distance stars across the nation because St. Benedict’s is not a member of the New Jersey state association, public or private, which has limited his racing opportunities throughout his career.
This past fall, his senior season got off to a flying start on Sept. 28 when he turned in a blistering 15:03 at the Cougar Invitational 5K in Colts Neck, a time that was just five seconds shy of the course record. Jarrett recovered from a painful groin injury to again place eighth in the 2007 Foot Locker Regionals on Nov. 24, where he hung on after nearly being undone by an extremely fast early pace. This performance qualified him for The Foot Locker National Championships where, on Dec. 8, he showed the country what he was made of, finishing sixth.
Hannon has been the head coach at St. Benedict’s for nine years and has been coaching track and cross country for some 30 years. He knows a rare talent when he sees one.
“It is an absolute privilege to coach Brandon,” he said. “He’s an extremely bright young man. I’m a math teacher and Brandon is a student in my AP calculus class. He’s very bright, with a 3.8 GPA. In track, he’s a coach’s dream. From the beginning he showed great form and great desire. He’s the best cross country runner in St. Benedict’s history and I’d have to say he’s among the best to ever come out of New Jersey.”