Local Olympic hopeful trains for the games while coaching Seattle athletes

SEATTLE — He’s an Olympic hopeful, track coach, and mentor – Ray Wells Junior wears many hats and, in this week’s, western Washington Gets Real - we see the steps he’s taking to get to the Summer Games and the community he’s lifting on his way there.

“I’m a graduate of college, I’ve got multiple college degrees. I’m a business owner now. I’m a head coach. I’m a professional athlete.

Ray Wells Junior is doing his best. He’s working out in Seattle with the goal of making the Summer Games in Paris.

When he sat down with KIRO 7, he was coming off an outdoor meet in Miami and preparing for one in California in hopes of making the team.

“Right now, I’m coming off the best indoor season or season in general for my track and field career. The most incredible thing about that to me is its post-surgery,” explained Wells.

That’s right he’s training and even posting a blazing 6.48 in the 60-meter indoor – all while healing from an Achilles injury.

“I thought when I was in college it was, I was fast. But now I can actually say, on record I’m faster now after injury. Older, much wiser. I understand this, I look at it much differently. I’m just so grateful to even be in the position I’m in,” said Wells.

That position includes leading teams at The Bush School and Cleveland High in Seattle on top of personal training. Shaping dozens of teens who hope to be in his spikes one day.

He says there’s a number of lessons he hopes to leave his runners.

“The one I try to make them remember the most is, life is a fight for territory. And the moment you stop fighting for what you believe in, what you don’t believe in will automatically take over.

The Seattle native is especially grateful to be passing these gems to kids in his hometown.

“It gives me another reason to keep going. You know, like I said at the beginning, I wear a lot of hats, but that’s what keeps me going is knowing that I have the next generation under me, and I can never be hypocritical to them. So, I can’t tell them to do anything that I’m not doing personally,” said Wells.

God, Loyalty, family - that’s the motto Wells carries everywhere, it’s now a gift he’s passed down to the next generation of runners.

“Sometimes it’s okay to go fast and alone, sometimes okay to go in far together. But at the end of the day, what’s going to help you succeed,” that’s the question he hopes will drive his track career and the futures of countless young people in Seattle.

If you’d like to contact Ray Wells Jr. you can reach him on Instagram.

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