SALEM, Va. – We’ve become quite familiar with his name and his game on the track and football field — and for good reason.
Salem’s Peyton Lewis is now reaping the benefits of using his track abilities on the field and vice versa.
“I mainly just try to do my job and execute properly. I really don’t want to get into my own head,” Lewis said at a recent track practice. The junior was prepping for the VHSL Class 4 Track and Field Championships along with his teammates. “I encourage every football athlete to run track because it can help with your quickness, agility, explosiveness, and overall speed.”
It wasn’t long after Lewis won state championship track titles in 2022 when the Division I football offers started to pour in. Just recently, Lewis narrowed his decision from nearly two dozen down to six before announcing his decision on May 27 — the Tennessee Volunteers.
“Tennessee had always been on my mind previous to me getting recruited,” Lewis said.
“We were on the drive back [from the Spring game] and my parents were like, ‘Call them. We already know what you want to do. Just call them,’” he said.
With that decision out of the way, Lewis is ready to continue to excel on the track and in his final season of high school football.
But more importantly, as Lewis put it, “Something my mom brought up the other day, I never really thought of, was you can go back to being a kid again.”