For Stedman Cook, the members of his track and field relay teams at Archbishop Carroll High School are more than just teammates to hand off or receive a baton from. “You’re not running for yourself. You’re running for the other three people… They’re not (just) teammates. They’re brothers,” he said.

Next year, Cook will run track – sprint events and probably relays, too – for the University of Connecticut on a full athletic scholarship. The Archbishop Carroll senior has been named the 2016 Athlete of the Year for his Catholic high school, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington.

Beth Blaufuss, Carroll’s president, had special praise for those relay runners. “They’ve gone after excellence at an elite level, and really worked at staying nice guys at the same time,” she said.

The Archbishop Carroll relay teams recently earned top finishes in the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia, in the nation’s oldest and largest track and field competition. Cook and his fellow runners took fourth place in the 4x400-meter relay and fifth in the 4x100-meter relay, running in the finals against one other high school team from the United States and six from Jamaica.

“It was heart-stopping,” Cook said, describing the thrill of running in that competition.

Cook competes for Archbishop Carroll in indoor track in the late fall and winter, and outdoor track in the spring. He runs in the 100 and 200-meter dashes and on the school’s 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 relay teams. He and his Carroll teammate Maxwell Willis earned high school All-American honors in the 200-meter dash in indoor track. Carroll’s 4x400 relay team was named first team All-Met by the Washington Post for this past indoor track season, and Cook earned individual honorable mention All-Met honors.

The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference track and field championships will be held later in May. Last year in the WCAC championships, Cook took second place in  the 200-meter dash and third in the 100-meter dash, and Carroll’s 4x400 team took first place.

A line of dialogue in the recent movie Race resonated with Cook, when the actor playing the legendary Olympic track and field star Jesse Owens said, “Everyone’s equal when you step to the line.” Cook added, “You’re fast or you’re not,” and what can make you faster is natural ability and hard work.

Cook said he loves the feeling of freedom that he experiences while running. He started running in the second grade, and track has always been his favorite sport. His parents Dean and Kimberly Cook were his first coaches, with the CYO track team at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Silver Spring. He graduated from St. Michael the Archangel School four years ago as a member of the school’s last graduating class before it suspended operations. Cook said his parents – both of whom retired with the rank of sergeant, first class, from the Army – taught him important lessons about discipline and hard work. His dad works for Lockheed Martin, and his mother is a dental technician at Fort Belvoir Hospital.

“They taught me when I’m not working, someone else is working,” he said. Another lesson learned, he said, is “that there is never a best. There is always need for improvement.”

Cook, a member of Ebenezer A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church in Fort Washington, said his Catholic education in elementary and high school has reinforced the importance of faith in his life and always relying on God, especially in challenging situations. He said he also enjoyed the Carroll community, with students from across the Washington area and with roots in different countries. “We have a variety of personalities in the school. I enjoyed it,” he said. “…Everyone had a story to tell, or a joke to say. It was very interesting.”

At Archbishop Carroll, Cook took several classes in the International Baccalaureate program there, including in chemistry and in math studies, and classes on the theory of knowledge and internet technology in a global society. Those classes, he said, “taught me to think outside the box, to use reason and develop my own perception of things.”

After graduating from Archbishop Carroll, Cook plans to major in computer engineering and minor in business administration at U-Conn., while he is running track there. He said his education at Carroll has prepared him in every way for the future, academically, athletically, socially, spiritually and mentally. “I feel I am prepared for the next level,” Cook said. “I feel school has prepared me for what college will be like, the challenges I’ll have, and (how to) overcome them.”

Training for and running track, he added, has taught him “to give 100 percent, to be committed. You have to commit to a process to be great. You have to put in the work to see the results.”