Jayden Keys

Obra D. Tompkins HS, Katy, TX, c/o 2024
AthleticNET Bio

Jayden Keys comes from a family who has always been around sports. His father, Sean, ran hurdles collegiately and his mother, Louella, swam in high school. An uncle, Scott, played wide receiver for the Eagles and Bills. His brother Clayton is a junior running for Nebraska, and his sister, Lanaye, competes in track and field at Houston Christian.

At a very young age, Sean made little hurdles the kids could jump over.

“When they were really small, I built some small miniature hurdles. They were like four or five and I had them go over hurdles then. I said to myself, one way or another they're gonna be hurdlers,” he says with a laugh.

Jayden wanted to be like his older siblings. Anything they wanted to do, he wanted to do, but better. He would work out and enjoyed the work track and field entailed.

The work he put into it paid off. He finished second in the 80 m hurdles(11-12 years old) in the USATF JO Nationals.  He continued to compete and place nationally. He added the long jump to his short and long hurdle events after seeing his brother and sister compete.

“My brother and sister were jumping good and then I wanted to jump good too. It was more of a if they do it, I'm gonna do it better. I think I've done a pretty good job of trying to do that.

By the time he arrived at Tompkins HS, he was a seasoned competitor. He qualified for state that year and finished third with a leap of 23-11.25(+3.3). He didn’t quite make it out of his area meet in the 100m hurdles (14.97,-1.2) or out of his 300m hurdles regional meet(39.27), though those two times  were his freshman bests. Jayden wasn’t surprised by his efforts despite being a freshman.

“I just kind of put the work in. No one is going to give me it to me because they're older and I'm younger. I just kind of kind of worked as hard as I could and I got there. It was a surprise, but not a surprise at the same time.”

His sophomore year, he really improved. He leapt a personal best of 25-04.75(NWI) at his district meet and a 25-01.5(+0.7) at his region meet before finishing third at state with a 24-08.25(+2.5). 

His region performance was a memorable one for him. The previous year, Aaron Davis of Humble Summer Creek had taken off his shoes before the long jump competition had ended. Jayden felt disrespected and though he scratched leapt over 25 feet on his final jump, he used that as inspiration for the next time they met. A year later, he faced Davis again. Davis was ranked number one and Keys number two. He went to his dad and told him that he would jump 25-02. On his final jump, he leapt 25-01.5 to win the event.

“Right when I jumped I said ‘man, this is a good jump’,” he says now. “ I just jumped 25. I just went down the runway and boom!”

Between his sophomore and junior years, he had a big growth spurt. He was 5-09 as a freshman and by the time he became a junior had grown to his current height of 6-01.

He also began to hone his hurdle technique during summer track after just missing out on making it to the state meet (14.20 in 100mH and 38.91 for the 300m hurdles at the region meet). He worked on his technique instead of running track meets, he would fine tune his technique. 

During his junior track season, he worked with his coaches to make sure he wasn’t overdoing it training for all his events. He would let them know when he was feeling tired or if something was feeling out of the ordinary. He wanted to make sure that he was getting in the work though, but just being smart about it.

His training regimen is split up on each day. He hurdles and sprints every other day and jumps on the other days.

All these factors contributed to him finishing third in the 100m hurdles(13.82, -0.9), 300m hurdles(37.23) and third in the long jump with a 23-04.75 at the Texas State meet.

His postseason was even better. He went back and forth between the Nike Elite Summit in Beaverton, OR and the USATF JO Nationals in Eugene, OR at the end of July and beginning of August and came away with two wins. On Wednesday before the Nike Elite Summit began, he won the long jump with a 24-01.5. Then on Thursday before arriving in Beaverton, he ran the 100m hurdle rounds in 14.33 to qualify for the semis. On Saturday he ran 14.14 to advance to Sunday's finals. After a false start by favorite, Alexander Chukwukelu, he won with a 13.72(+0.6). He accomplished what he had set out to do with those races.

This upcoming year he is going to continue to use what has worked best for him; fine tuning his technique, working on the small details and training to get faster. His father believes that his added speed has contributed to some big scratches in the long jump. It will take some time before his technique adapts to the speed he is carrying down the runway. Jayden feels he has 25 foot jumps in him, but just needs to erase those scratches.