Former basketball player Jack Stadlman bursts onto the track scene

“The Jack Stadlman Story” could be coming to a theater near you. The screenplay is being written each time he breaks out of the blocks in the 400 meters. To see the time he’s running with so little experience or knowledge of what he’s doing is simply stunning.

“I believe what we’re doing will conclude with him being on the top of the podium at the state meet,” says his coach, Desmond Lee.

It’s a story about a teenage athlete who discovered his freakish talent almost by accident.

Stadlman was a junior varsity basketball player at Temecula Valley High who used to beat everyone in line drills and suicides, indicating speed and endurance.

Temecula Valley High School senior Jack Stadlman, a former basketball player, has transferred his skills to the track.

(Mark Boster/For The Times)

“I would always be the quickest,” he said. “Basketball wasn’t going as I wanted. I wanted to try something else because I was so fast.”

In October 2023, he quit basketball and joined the track team in his junior season. He ran the 100 and 200 last spring. His best 100 time was 10.73 seconds and his 200 time was 21.61. He ran one 400 race, finishing in 49.06.

“I didn’t want to do the 400,” he told himself. “This race is too tiring and too much.”

Said Lee: “ I didn’t get to do much work with him but saw he had this unbelievable engine.”

Lee ran a 4x400 relay leg and recorded a split in 48.2. It was a hint what he might become.

“It was noticeable I was really good,” he said.

Vista Murrieta coach Coley Candaele said he saw Stadlman run that 400 last season. He was the high school coach for Olympian Michael Norman and was convinced something was there.

“I knew he was the real deal,” Candaele said.

Lee still had to convince Stadlman the 400 would be his race this season.

“When we started fall training, he wants to run 100 so bad,” Lee said. “No, no no.”

Lee knew that the defending state champion in the 100, Brandon Arrington from Mount Miguel, ran 10.33 seconds.

Jack Stadlman of Temecula Valley opened the track season by running the 400 meters in 45.69 seconds, the second-best time to Olympian Michael Norman in Inland Empire history.

(Stadlman family)

“I’m telling him, ‘Would you rather win and be on the podium at state or be eliminated? I’m not trying to burst your bubble, but you’re not going to beat him.’”

Stadlman listened and went to work. He trained relentlessly all fall in the weight room and running hills. He won the winter championship for 300 meters. He started to embrace the 400.

“The 400 is more like a sprint for me. I started liking it,” he said.

Then came last Saturday, when he ran in only his second 400 ever in a meet at Vista Murrieta. The expectation was to run a time in the 47s. Instead, Stadlman made eyes go wide in surprise when he finished in 45.69 seconds, the second-best performance by an Inland Empire high school athlete all-time next to Norman’s 45.19.

“I was super excited,” Stadlman said.

It raises questions. Was it a fluke? Did Stadlman peak in his first race of the year? And how fast can he run this season?

The answers are no, no and no one knows.

“I can’t tell you how fast he’s going to run,” Lee said. “It’s not his peak. There’s more in the system.”

Stadlman is a 6-foot, 160-pound 18-year-old who loses weight so easily that he tries to eat as much as he can. He can do windmill dunks. His mother is a native of Cambodia and is a first-grade teacher. His father is a truck driver. His mother urged him to try track. He’s an A student who played trumpet in the middle school band. Expect college recruiters to be inundating him with offers this spring.

“Everybody has been telling me to do track,” he said. “I always thought it would be long-distance training.”

Now that he has discovered his talent for running, he’s all in. It’s his future and the fact that the Olympic Games are coming to Los Angeles in 2028 makes his discovery perfect timing.

The reaction to his sudden success was swift.

“I was getting a lot of congratulations,” he said. “My friends were really proud seeing my progress from nothing to something. My parents were hyped. They were screaming.”

Stadlman might need to hire an agent. His story is headed to big-time status.