As his junior year of high school at Fordham Prep winds down, track and field athlete Julian Morgan Lynch reflects on a year that has brought both challenges and successes. He overcame injury and led his men’s varsity team to victory at the Catholic High School Athletic Association New York State Intersectional Championship, claiming first place in pole vault and sixth in long jump.
“It’s a really important meet for my school and my team because it’s our league championship,” said Lynch. “We pride ourselves on being able to win and dominate against all the other schools in our league.”
When Lynch started high school, he wanted to run track to work on his speed for baseball. He tried pole vaulting because all the freshmen were required to go to the first practice. After a couple of drills, the coach said he was going to be a pole vaulter.
“I started doing it and I was pretty good right off the bat,” he said. “As I’ve continued to do it, I’ve had more and more fun.”
Both the pole vault and long jump give a sense of flying. “I absolutely love it,” said Lynch, who last weekend placed second in the pole vault at the Eastern States Championships. An injury at the end of the indoor season curtailed his long jump practice, but he’s easing back into it.
Lynch’s mother, filmmaker and artist Shola Lynch, was a gifted middle-distance runner well known in the New York City track community, who competed at the Division I collegiate level. His father, Vincent Morgan, credits her for their son’s athletic ability.
“It was kind of cool to, in a way, follow in her footsteps, even though we’re not doing the same events, which I think kind of helps,” Lynch said. “I’m doing my own thing, but she knows enough about my events that she can listen to me nerd out about it.”
He plans to compete in pole vault quite a bit this summer, as well as prepare for his senior year of high school. As of now, his goal is to attend an Ivy League institution, so he’s staying motivated to excel both in the classroom and as an athlete.
“I want to do engineering,” Lynch said. “Of course, I have the dream of one day continuing track and field past college, but that’s not guaranteed.”