Kylon Drones kicked ass in track and field during his time at West Texas A&M. The openly gay athlete even competed in the NCAA Division II track and field national championships in the 110-meter hurdle event.
Alas, he didn’t do as well as he had hoped, placing 14th out of 19 runners with a time of 14.44 seconds.
"I would have run quicker had I hadn’t hit the ninth hurdle," Drones told Outsports. "As I was getting up there and really getting into my swing, I realized that I was getting close to the front of the pack and I had a chance of actually getting one of the automatic times to get into the final. I guess that kind of through me off, and I wasn’t really concentrating as much as I should have been. I snapped down over the hurdle too soon."
While his track career may now be over, Drones has decided to join the cheerleading team at West Texas A&M.
"I hate having free time, so I tried out for the cheer team," he said. Now instead of hurdling, he’ll be tossing and twirling.
Drones came out publicly in February of 2017, so this year was the first time he competed on the track team as an openly gay man.
"When I finally went public with it, everybody was really supportive," Drones said. "Being able to express myself and be able to compete was just so much better. I feel like I actually did compete a lot better after I was publicly out."
