Daily Journal Boys’ Track Athlete of the Year: Serra’s Jaden Green

“When I was younger, I watched a lot of Usain Bolt,” Green said. “I never really ran track until my freshman or sophomore year. But my dad was really big on me running track … because he was really big on my recruitment. So, I just put that trust in him and just ended up running.”

Green’s father Omari knows the recruitment game as well as anyone. An assistant football coach since 2009 at College of San Mateo, where turning promising football talent into successful four-year college transfers is the name of the game, Omari Green has spent most of his son’s life priming defensive backs for the next level.

While one’s success within a given sport is a prerequisite for the Daily Journal’s annual sports awards, it isn’t the only criteria. Jaden Green certainly qualifies in this respect. Not only was the sprinter the fastest man in San Mateo County this season with a personal record in the 100-meter dash of 10.58 seconds, he ranked third-best throughout the Central Coast Section. With that dynamic time May 3 at the West Catholic Athletic League Championships at Saint Francis-Mountain View, he became the fastest man in Serra history, breaking the program record in the 100, previously set by Nate Harvey, who held the mark since 2010.

What puts Jaden Green over the top as the Daily Journal Boys’ Track Athlete of the Year is the off-the-field success. In terms of his recruitment, not only is the 5-9 two-way varsity football standout on his way to play running back at the NCAA Division I program at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, he is slated to serve as a two-sport athlete as well as a collegiate sprinter with the Mountain Hawks’ track team.

“To be honest … I really did not like track until the state meet that we ran (this year),” Jaden Green said. “Yeah, [my dad] was definitely right. It did end up helping with my recruitment.”

Jaden Green has a close relationship with his father, especially through sports. Seeing Omari Green on the sideline at Serra games is a regular occurrence. Typically, the only reason he isn’t in the house for Padres games is if CSM is playing at the same time.

Through the years, the Greens have formed something a telepathic bond. Jaden Green said he always plays better when his father is on the sideline coaching him up, but that their communication is often left unspoken.

“He just gives me that look … and I end up having a great game after,” Jaden Green said. “It’s like one of the weirdest things I’ve ever gone through in my life.”

“That look” has transcended the track world as well. While Omari Green doesn’t generally find his way to the track infield as he would for a football game, Jaden Green always establishes a line of sight with his father when he’s getting ready to run.

“Even when I’m warming up, I look toward the stands and I always know where to find my dad,” Jaden Green said.

As an underclassman, when Jaden Green was getting his feet on the ground on the varsity track circuit, the only competitive success he saw was as a relay runner. He was in good company during his sophomore year of 2022. Not only was his boys’ 4x100 relay team anchored by Parker Harrison, who recently finished his freshman season on the Division I team at Cal State Fullerton, the foursome was rounded out by Jaden Green and Sione Laulea, both of whom had also played for the burgeoning Northern California dynasty of Serra football.

Laulea would go on to become another one of Omari Green’s recruiting successes. After graduating in 2022, he moved up the hill to become an All-Bay 6 Conference football cornerback at CSM before transferring to the University of Oregon.

And it was during Jaden Green’s raw underclassman years at Serra where his idea of sprinting greatness, in the varsity world at least, was found in Laulea.

“I honestly thought he would break [the school’s 100 record],” Green said. “And I thought I would run faster by running alongside him because he’s done a lot for me in track and in football.”

It wasn’t until the year after Laulea graduated that Jaden Green started rounding out his track resume. During that junior campaign of 2023, he put himself in position to compete for CCS medals not only with the relay team — the then-junior teamed to win the WCAL titles in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays — but by making the WCAL podium with a fourth-place finish in the 100 and third place in the 200.

Then injury struck. Heading into the CCS meet, he suffered a mini tear of his right hamstring, ending his track season. The injury lingered into his senior football season, and he got more bad news prior to Serra’s gridiron quest for a third straight Nor Cal championship, suffering an injury to his left hamstring two weeks prior to the Aug. 26 season opener.

Jaden Green, however, recovered to play in all 13 of Serra’s football games, including the program’s historic third straight CIF Open Division State Championship Bowl. Still, fears of another hamstring injury derailing his senior year, and his plans to redeem himself in the track postseason, lingered to the last.

“When we got to CCS (track), that’s when my leg started to get tight again, and I started to get scared something would happen again,” Jaden Green said.

The senior’s fears were allayed in a big way, as he competed in four events at the CCS championships. After the 4x100 relay team of he, Christopher Yoon, Jeovanni Henley and Jusiah Vinson claimed the WCAL championship with a first-place time of 41.77, they climbed the CCS podium with a second-place finish in 41.83.

Jaden Green also shined at the CCS meet in Gilroy with a second-place finish in the 100 in 10.83, and a third-place finish in the 200 in 21.98 — this after recording a PR of 21.84 in the event at the CCS trials. He also competed in the long jump, where he settled for 10th in CCS.

Jaden Green’s biggest triumph of the season came April 20 at the CCS Top 8 meet at Los Gatos High. The senior was coming off a bittersweet finish in the 4x100 relay, where Serra settled for third place with Mitty claiming first. Mitty was Serra’s primary rival on the sprint circuit this season, and the loss did not sit well with him.

“There’s no way I’m letting them beat me again,” Jaden Green said he told himself before lining up at the start of the 100.

That’s when he peered into the grandstands and got “that look” from his father. The result was historic, as Jaden Green ran to a second-place finish of 10.68 — finishing just back of Los Altos senior Nathaniel Guillory at 10.64 — but out-touching Mitty’s Toritseju Maki at the finish line by two one-hundredths of a second.

“I ended up getting him with that forward lean at the end,” Jaden Green said.

It was that time of 10.68 that catapulted Jaden Green into the record books, topping Harvey’s 14-year Serra record in the 100 of 10.77. The fastest man in Serra history would break his own record two weeks later at the WCAL Championships with a time of 10.58.