Center Grove’s Brevin Holubar, right, was a regional qualifier in the 400-meter dash last season.
Daily Journal file photo
Brevin Holubar’s competitive nature will be on display one lap at a time this spring.
This isn’t to suggest it isn’t there at other times, but the Center Grove junior is particularly determined to be one of the state’s best in the 400-meter dash.
Holubar found himself somewhat in the background last spring as team storylines go. Longtime coach Eric Moore was retiring at season’s end, and the Trojans’ outstanding core of senior talent would depart with him.
The spotlight won’t be focused solely on Holubar when Center Grove opens the season at the Columbus North Invitational on April 6. Just more of it.
“I’ve always wanted to win. It’s definitely from my parents (Bart and Angi), and having a twin is a big part of it, too,” said Holubar, whose older brother — by two minutes — Brody is the Daily Journal’s reigning player of the year in boys golf.
“He and I will play basketball in the driveway, and we’ll fight a little bit. I try to beat him in golf, but I know I can’t.”
Brevin Holubar played basketball up until this school year, the images of him diving on the floor in an attempt to regain possession for his team still fresh in the mind of first-year CG track coach Brad Timmons.
The coach also witnessed Holubar’s edge this past football season, when he finished as the second-leading receiver (39 catches for 744 yards and six touchdowns) for a Trojans squad that advanced to the Class 6A semistate.
“Brevin is such an aggressive competitor,” said Timmons, an assistant coach for Moore during the fall. “In football, he was so aggressive going after the football, and he’s a hard charger in track. And he’s selfless. Wherever you tell Brevin to go in the relay, he’ll go, and he’ll give you his best.”
Basketball was the sport Holubar had played the longest, but in time, he had a decision to make.
“I felt like I should focus more on track and football. I like the competitiveness of them both,” Holubar said. “Football is more team-based, everybody working together, and track is more solo until it comes to the relays.”
Holubar finished second in the 400 at the Columbus North Sectional last spring, running a personal-best time of 49.60 seconds. He narrowly missed making state after his fifth-place performance (49.80) at the Greenfield-Central Regional.
Center Grove’s standard is the 48.4 run by senior Nick Stoner in 2011 – a mark Holubar hopes to chase down this season or next.
“I started running the 400 in the sixth grade, and I was pretty good at it,” Holubar said. “I like that it’s an all-out sprint. You’ve got to give it your all the whole race.”
He did exactly that at the state meet, running the first leg of the championship-winning 4×400 relay that also included the since-graduated trio of Parker Doyle, Zach Greller and Micah Coyle.
And though it’s unclear at this point who will join Holubar on the relay, or in which order they’ll perform, the junior isn’t opposed to being the final runner holding the baton. He’ll do what best benefits his team.
“If Brevin approaches his adult life the way he approaches athletics, he’s going to be unbelievably successful,” said Timmons, who plans to occasionally run Holubar in 100- and 200-meter races this season as a way of augmenting his speed.
“I think the sky is the limit for him this season.”
