Hodson Harding is set to soar with the Rice University Owls.
The spectacular sprinter currently in Grade 12 at Gleneagle secondary school signed a letter of intent earlier this week to join the Owls of Houston, Texas and the heralded NCAA Div. 1 ranks next fall on a track and field scholarship.
In the process, Harding turned down other full-ride offers he was pondering from other big-name American post-secondary institutions such as the University of Texas at Austin, Kansas State, Penn, North Carolina and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Rice was one of four campuses Harding visited on recent fly-downs and he was quickly convinced that it was the right fit for him.
"The campus is amazing... very beautiful," said the 17-year-old Harding, a native of London, England who moved to Coquitlam in February of 2009 and only took up track the following spring. "My parents tagged along so I got a good feel for everything. It was probably the hardest decision of my life, [one that] determines the rest of your life. I took every aspect under consideration and for track and academics, [Rice] was the best balance for me."
Harding set a personal-best time of 47.53 seconds in his main event, the 400 metres, at last June's B.C. high school championships at Burnaby's Swangard Stadium, where he finished second to Oak Bay's Brendon Restall.
Placing third in that same race was Harding's Coquitlam Cheetahs clubmate and Heritage Woods grad Ben Ayesu-Attah, who, ironically, ran the anchor leg as a freshman with the University of Idaho in last weekend's deciding men's 4x400 relay race that won the Vandals their first-ever Western Athletic Conference (WAC) indoor track and field title.
Last August, Harding set a new Western Canada Summer Games record of 47.64 in the men's 400 in Kamloops.
"We are very excited that Hodson is coming to Rice next fall," Owls head track and field coach Jon Warren wrote in an email to The Tri-City News. "He is a great student and a great athlete who is the perfect fit for this university. I cannot say enough good things about him and his family."
Harding has also proven to be a formidable for other sprinters his age in the 100m and 200m events, having placed third in the latter at last year's prep provincials.
"He is an excellent 400-metre runner who help us in many respects -- both in the open events and in the relays," Warren said. "I think his ability as a runner can take him far beyond the NCAA.
"It's not an understatement [to say] that the Olympic Games could be in his future."
Harding plans to take sociology at Rice with a goal of eventually going to law school. He said attending Gleneagle has been "a terrific experience" and that teachers and students alike there have been swamping him with congratulatory gestures since he committed to the Owls.
"Everybody has been great," said Harding, who has targeted achieving a 46.8 clocking in the 400m with the Owls next season. "I'm always trying to better my time and excel."
FINISH LINE: At last weekend's WAC indoors, Ayesu-Attah posted a personal-best 48.12 time in the men's 400m to place fourth and help earn him second team All-Conference honours.
