Mike Dingle is answering to a lot of people these days. Among them: Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire and inside linebackers coach Josh Bookbinder and Red Raiders track and field coach Wes Kittley and sprints/hurdles coach Calvin Robinson.
As if he's not dizzy enough being 17 years old, in his first semester as a college student, halfway across the country from home, that being Greer, South Carolina in Dingle's case.
Oh, well. He'll manage.
"It's been great so far," he said. "It's just a blessing to be able to be around the people I am: Coach Joey McGuire, coach Book. The whole entire coaching staff is great, and on top of that, coach Robinson and coach Kittley have been really accepting. Texas Tech has been the place to be. I'm very appreciative of it."
Dingle graduated high school early and started classes at Tech in January. At the moment, he's dividing his sports time between off-season conditioning with the football team and track and field workouts. His spot with the Red Raiders owes to the football staff's insatiable desire for speed and their quest for athletes who have demonstrated that speed during track season. They're the ones who signed him in December.
"Football's a passion of mine since I was younger," Dingle said, "so that's my main priority, but whenever I can fit in track, that's what I'm going to do. I've been practicing (track) at 4 o'clock after my lifts (for football training). If I can't make that (track) 4 o'clock practice, then I come in myself working at 8 or 9, just working on drills to try and get better and perfect my craft."
Dingle, 6-foot-1, said he's up to 230 pounds. McGuire's staff has projected him as a boundary linebacker, the position at which the nearly identical-sized Kosi Eldridge started for the Red Raiders last season.
Dingle, who missed his sophomore-year track season with a broken foot, was one of the nation's top high-school hurdlers in his junior year last spring. He ran the 110-meter hurdles in a wind-legal 13.68 seconds at the South Carolina Class 5A Upper State meet on May 14. Six days later, he ran 13.56 (no wind indicator) at the South Carolina High School League state championships.
Last week, competing unattached, Dingle ran two rounds of the 60-meter hurdles in Tech's Jarvis Scott Open, registering times of 8.16 seconds and 7.99. He qualified seventh for the final, but was scratched from the race.
Dingle said he had practiced about four times each of the previous two weeks.
"I have a lot of kinks to work on," he said. "You could tell it's been seven months since I've run, but I know working with coach Robinson he's going to get me right."
The Jarvis Scott Open was his first meet to run 42-inch hurdles compared to the 39-inch hurdles used in high-school competition and his first time to run them at 60 meters instead of the 110s.
"You can't go over them the same," he said. "You have to approach them differently. You have to attack harder and this extra stuff because, as you saw, I tripped up. I stumbled a couple of times. You have to have great technique going over these hurdles to compete collegiately."
In high school, the Tech freshman was commonly referenced as Miquel Dingle. He prefers to go by Mike now. That's the same name as his father, former South Carolina and Cincinnati Bengals running back Mike Dingle. That's whose path he wants to follow.
"All throughout my childhood, I made it known to my dad that I want to be in the league (NFL)," he said. "I want to take football seriously. After I let him know that, he and I have been working together. Just in the lab cooking, you know?"
The younger Dingle already has diverted from his dad's route, going somewhere other than South Carolina. He never expected that himself until a few months ago.
"Huge Gamecocks fan," he said. "I was a diehard Gamecocks fan. I told myself, I told my dad, regardless of what happens, that's exactly where I'm going to be. I'm going to play football there.
"But God works in many different ways, and I'm glad he led me here."
Tech hosts its final regular-season home meet, the Matador Qualifier, beginning at 2:30 p.m. Friday. Kittley plans to rest most of the Red Raiders' top athletes in preparation for next week's Big 12 indoor championships, which also are scheduled for the Sports Performance Center.
What:Matador Qualifier
When:Friday
Where:Sports Performance Center
Schedule:Field-event start times, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Running-event start times: 2:30 p.m. to 8:40 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Tech freshman Dingle tackles full plate
