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Landon Edwards, his family’s next star Scout, eyes high-jump records

Landon Edwards, according to his own family, is the most athletic of his siblings.

Lucy Edwards, a junior midfielder for DePaul’s soccer team, has been named All-Big East three years in a row. She led Lake Forest to the Class 2A state title in 2014 and scored a goal in the state title game against Normal West. She also scored 13 times her senior season.

Lorenzo Edwards, a freshman forward for the St. Joseph’s basketball team, averaged 19.2 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks per game as a senior at Lake Forest. The 6-foot-7 forward added 20 double-doubles for good measure.

And yet Landon Edwards, a junior on Lake Forest’s track and field team, is known as the athletic one.

“(Lucy and Lorenzo) encourage me more than anyone. They really always say I’m the most athletic in the family,” Landon said, laughing. “So we play around with each other, because everyone has their strengths. My sister’s really smart, Lorenzo’s the most social, and I guess I’m the most athletic.

“It’s always all positive energy between us. Both of them going to college and playing sports made me realize how much I want to do the same thing. I’d love to potentially go to college for track and field.”

USC remains the dream for Edwards, who also plays soccer in the fall, but that process is far down the road. For now, Edwards is focused on the spring track season. He’s considered a strong contender for state in both the high jump and triple jump and will also contribute for the Scouts on sprint relays.

His coach, John Brumund-Smith, saw eight state qualifiers graduate after last season. So Edwards — along with seniors Liam Pooler, Brian Sullivan and Etienne Najman, among others — will bear the brunt of the late-season responsibility.

“It was an expectation that Edwards would go (to state) last year, and he missed it by one height,” Brumund-Smith said of Edwards’ sectional high-jump performance. “We knew last year that he’d be our best kid this year, and he is. We’re going to need to depend on him a ton because we don’t have the depth we had last season, but he’s great. He’s one of our captains, and he’s just really great.”

Edwards’ personal record in the high jump is 6-4, but he and his coach expect him to exceed that. By the time Edwards graduates next spring, their goal is for him to break the school’s high-jump record of 6-7, set by Jim Kennedy in 1978.

To reach that height, Edwards started doing more plyometric workouts with his father, Kevin Edwards, who played for four NBA teams from 1988 to 2001. Landon Edwards worked on various leg-building exercises and also, perhaps most importantly, the mental preparation required to reach the Class 3A state finals and set school records. He admitted to psyching himself out occasionally by placing too much pressure on himself, so a relaxed mindset is as important as any physical improvement.

And barely missing state adds even more fuel to a slow-burning fire.

“Just missing (state) by that small amount, it just proved to me how much I want to be there,” Edwards said. “My experience from that moment, that runs through my mind all the time. I know how hard I have to work just to reach that next level.”

That level could also include rewriting Lake Forest’s record books.

When asked if he knew when the school’s high jump record was set, he hesitated slightly: “Oh, it was a while ago. Man. I think it was 1980-something? I’m really not sure.”

When told when it was, he responded with surprise: “Oh, yeah. Wow, that’s quite some time.”

When asked if he expects to break the record, he paused, then answered confidently: “I expect to get it. I really do.”

Rich Mayor is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.

Twitter @Pioneer_Press