Led by a young superstar in Quincy Wilson, Bullis track keeps leveling up

August 04, 2024

Joe Lee looks out over the track in this corner of the pristine 102-acre campus at Bullis, a private high school in Potomac, Md., and his mind races. It is a warm afternoon in early April, and Lee has a practice to run. The Bulldogs’ coach hates complacency.

Lee is always moving. In his 11th year at the school, the former youth pastor breaks his athletes into groups, some pulling 25-pound sleds, others hopping mini hurdles. Each drill is calibrated, each piece of instruction delivered with purpose.

Over the past decade, Lee has transformed Bullis into a track and field powerhouse. The boys’ and girls’ programs have produced a parade of stars, dominating local events and routinely earning accolades at national meets. In the past year, the Bulldogs set national records in the girls’ and boys’ 4x400-meter relays.

It took time to reach this level. When Lee arrived at Bullis in 2013, the track and field team was viewed as an easy extracurricular. He remembers athletes munching on candy between drills.

“They were challenging days, to put it mildly,” Lee says.

Now, Bullis competes with the country’s elite. The program’s success has attracted talent from beyond the D.C. area, including a 5-foot-9, 140-pound freshman from Virginia Beach two years ago.

Quincy Wilson didn’t come to Bullis by accident. His cousin, Shaniya Hall, was a standout under Lee and has gone on to have an impressive college career as a sprinter at national power Oregon. After Wilson’s mother, Monique, had a few conversations with the coach, the family decided to move to the Washington area.

Two years into his high school career, the decision has paid off for the Wilsons and Bullis. Quincy, 16, has become a burgeoning star on a national level, a representation of all that Bullis track has become.

Whenever Wilson runs, it seems he breaks a record. At the Penn Relays in Philadelphia last month, he grabbed the baton in the 4x400 preliminary with the Bulldogs in sixth place. Wilson ran a 44.37-second split, the fastest relay leg in the event in the storied competition’s history. Bullis went from sixth to first.

Lee is a coach fixated on the details: physics, biomechanics, technique and form. And Wilson has soaked it all in.

Laws of physics

“Please lock in,” Lee says at an April practice. “This is critically important.”

The 33 runners break into groups. Each is designated for a specific drill, depending on their health, specialty and skill level. Some groups pull the sleds; others do hurdle hops. Another drill has banana hurdles — short hurdles just a few inches high — set to a length of seven feet to make runners comfortable with longer and quicker strides.

Lee watches intently. His feedback is precise and sharp.

“Toes up, stiff ankle,” he says.

“Drive the thigh.”

“Allow your body to fire out.”

Lee had never heard of Bullis before a friend told him in 2013 that the school was looking for a track and field coach. At the time, Lee was a former college track athlete — he began his career at Howard University, then walked on at George Mason and won a national championship with the Patriots in 1996 — focused more on faith and working with youths. He helped coach track in his spare time.

In 2015, two years after Lee arrived, the Bulldogs won the Interstate Athletic Conference outdoor track title for the first time in more than 80 years. From the time he got to the school, Lee realized Bullis had talent. It was a matter of discovering it and crafting it. Over time, he has gotten more help in doing that. In 2014, his staff consisted of two parents as volunteers. Now, he has a staff of 12.

His methods have not changed. The Bulldogs receive the same kind of technical, straightforward instruction given to older, more accomplished athletes.

Lee said he ran under coaches who were verbally abusive, and his experience as a youth pastor shaped how he processes and converses with his athletes. He is a student of the sport, having frequent conversations with professional coaches — including Noah Lyles’s coach, Lance Brauman — about technique.

Lee believes physics, technique and form must remain consistent regardless of talent level. How that information is presented varies by the individual.

“The same thing that they’re teaching Noah Lyles is the same thing I’m teaching Shaeed Demetrius, who’s a freshman boy — he’s all over the place,” Lee said. “But I’m not changing, because it’s not about me. … The laws of physics are what they are.”

For sprinters, Lee’s pillars are block clearance, acceleration, transition, max velocity and deceleration management.

“A lot of my [past] coaches, they like to run you a lot and think you need to run a lot,” Wilson said. “[Lee] stays up and studies specific things that each athlete needs.”

Since 2014, Bullis has won 13 conference championships and produced five All-Met Athletes of the Year. Opposing coaches now view the Bulldogs as an important draw for their own meets.

“This year, they’ve been taking it to another level,” Gonzaga Coach Conrad Singh said. “With an unbelievable student-athlete, Quincy Wilson, leading the way — one-of-a-kind almost — you realize this is special.”

As Bullis has become a powerhouse, some in the track community have grown skeptical. Success invites scrutiny, and much of the talk around the program surrounds talent development and acquisition. IAC recruiting guidelines bar coaches from making first contact with a prospective athlete.

Lee insists athletes approach the program about joining, and not vice versa.

“There’s an impression or an assumption that coaches have a bigger say in the admissions process at a school like Bullis,” Georgetown Day Coach Anthony Belber said. “But … that’s me maybe jumping to conclusions.”

Lee is aware of the perception that he recruits.

“People say [we go out and recruit],” Lee said. “They say it all the time, but it’s not true.”

As for academics, Lee said the team’s average grade-point average this season is 3.9.

“There are a lot of athletes who are at other places that I would’ve loved to have at Bullis but didn’t get in,” Lee said. “If I got everybody who wanted to get in, we’re having a very different conversation right now.”

The roster Lee has assembled is among the strongest in the area and has earned its place on the national stage. In March, the Bulldogs toppled national powers Montverde Academy and IMG Academy at the Florida Relays. Last month, Wilson had his viral moment at the Penn Relays. And this week, the Bulldogs will be heavy favorites at the IAC championships.

Attracting a talent

Monique Wilson had to wait for the right moment. It was winter 2021, and her daughter, Kadence, was running for Great Bridge High at a meet in Virginia. But Monique kept glancing at a coach from another school.

She watched Lee pace the track and waited for her chance to start a conversation. The coach asked her if Kadence was interested in Bullis. Wilson told him she really wanted to speak about her son.

“He looked at me like, ‘What does he do?’ ” Monique recalled.

Two years later, Quincy Wilson has become one of Bullis’s most accomplished athletes. Wilson ran a 45.19 in the 400 meters at the Florida Relays and has set a high school boys’ national and under-18 world indoor record time of 45.76. In September, he signed a name, image and likeness deal with New Balance and has signed with William Morris Endeavor Sports, an agency with a lengthy client list that includes Christian McCaffrey, Joel Embiid and Serena Williams.

To top it off, he qualified for June’s Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore.

Every high school track program in the country would love to have Wilson on its roster. But he chose Bullis. As a kid who grew up in a military family and moved to six different states, the Potomac campus felt like home, so the Wilsons made the decision to move from Virginia to Prince George’s County.

“Those legs can wander away anytime, but your education will take you anywhere,” Monique said. “He’s running track, but we know that … he will also [get a strong] education. And that’s why he’s at Bullis.”

In part, the family wanted to stay close to Kadence, who now runs for James Madison University. But the move was mainly for Quincy, and it has been a sacrifice.

“[In Virginia], we built a house from the ground up,” Monique said. “We sold it, packed it up, to move here.”

After Wilson’s first workout at Bullis, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep on the track. As a freshman, he also played wide receiver for the football team, but he dropped that sport to focus on track.

At the April practice, the compact sophomore is in full black New Balance attire. During off time, he receives treatment for his legs and jokes with teammates. He and Lee constantly shoot quips at each other. He’s mature for his age and has an outside chance to make the U.S. Olympic team at 16. But he’s still a high school kid with a teenager’s sense of humor.

Yet he’s about his business when the time comes. Wilson explodes through every drill, immediately turning to Lee afterword for feedback. The two spend a good portion of the practice together, an elite talent receiving pointed instruction.

Going for greatness

Lee’s formula is a blend of art and science. He combines technical instructions and purposeful teaching, with the team’s culture built on older runners teaching younger athletes the program’s core tenets.

The program’s mantra is “LEAD” — no laziness, no egos, no attitude and no drama. When the top runners on the team are watching film and asking questions after each practice sprint, there is a trickle-down effect.

Wilson’s rapid rise has brought even more attention to the program. At practice, several athletes use backpacks from New Balance Nationals, one of the most prestigious meets at the high school level. A few are decorated with patches, denoting an all-American. After years of building, Lee has established a culture of success.

“A lot of these private schools, they bring different kids in, but Bullis, ever since I’ve been here, we haven’t brought a kid in [during] the middle of the year,” Wilson said. “We’re building bonds inside and outside of track. We’re like brothers.”

The coach understands expectations have grown. As he walks past runners doing a drill, he is frustrated by their effort. He pleads with them to find more intensity.

He gets on all fours, an AirPod dangling from his right ear and sunglasses blocking the afternoon sun, demonstrating the effort he wants. Everyone quiets.

“Give me great,” Lee said. “I don’t want good. I want great.”

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