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TACOMA -- Marques Avery readily admits it.
Even with his sprints coach, Randy Hoover, standing next to him, the Pasco junior is honest.
"I'm a football player who stays in shape by running track," Avery said. "I would do track in college, but my heart really is in football."
Hoover's heart probably skipped a beat.
"That's a brutal question," he said, smiling.
Hoover's response was partly sympathetic. He himself is a former football player who still gets a thrill watching games under the Friday night lights.
But given where Avery was a year ago to where he is now -- given another year -- he might do a 180 and become a top-flight sprinter who once dabbled in football.
Avery is well on his way toward that transformation. He earned a spot on the area's all-time top-10 list in the 100 meters last weekend while winning both the 100 and 200 at the 4A/3A Eastern Regionals, and he's a top contender in both events at this weekend's Star Track XXVII state meet at Mount Tahoma High in Tacoma.
Avery ran 10.93 seconds in Friday's 100 prelims. Although he didn't match it in Saturday's final -- he ran an 11.02 -- with one fewer event on his plate this weekend (Pasco's 4x100 relay failed to qualify), Hoover expects big things from Avery at state.
"You haven't seen the best of him yet," Hoover said of his star pupil. "He's had no one right next to him (in the 100) to push him, to make him dig down deep. I think his best will be this weekend. He's been strong all year whenever challenged."
The biggest challenge came in Saturday's 200 final, when Avery and Richland senior Steven Piippo ran stride-for-stride down the straightaway, Avery outleaning him at the finish to win by two-hundredths of a second.
"I just hate to lose," Avery said. "This weekend, I want to go out and compete with the best runners, get good times. I would love to win state, but we'll see how it goes."
Avery turned out for track as a seventh-grader at McLoughlin High, specifically to get faster for football, in which he plays wide receiver and strong safety.
It wasn't until last season that he saw any positive results on the track. He qualified for regionals in both the 100 and 200, finishing sixth in the 100 and eighth in the 200 -- quite upset at himself for what he considered subpar performances.
"I had to put it in perspective for him," Hoover said. "He is so competitive, he's telling us, 'That's not that great,' and I had to tell him that getting sixth as a sophomore is great. You're going up against grown men at that point."
Now it's Avery who's grown into being a strapping young man of 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, and with Hoover honing his starts, Avery shot onto the scene this year.
He beat Piippo, a state qualifier a year ago in the 100 and 200, for the first time at the Davis Invite. The next week, Avery finished third in the 200 at the Pasco Invite.
Two weeks ago, he won district titles on his home track in the 100 and 200 -- the latter in 22.20, which put him 10th on the all-time area list.
"None of this was expected," Avery said. "This whole year has been a surprise."
Part of his success, both he and Hoover credit to the work in the weight room he did in preparation for football. "And he's gifted with the right physique for sprinting," Hoover said. "He's worked hard to maximize that."
And part of it comes from Avery's ingrained competitiveness.
"I just love how you compete by yourself," he said. "How you can say, 'I won,' and that no one helped you. No one can take it away from you."
Spoken like a true trackster at heart.
