When he captured the 400-meter dash at the St. Germain Invitational in West Warwick a few weeks ago, the number on the clock read 49.62 seconds.
For Youton “Diamond” Doe, it was more than a victory. The numbers on the clock were more than just a PR or a state best.
For the Tolman High senior, who is the No. 1 seed for the one-lapper at this weekend’s State Meet, his race at the May 13 meet was more than that. It meant something far more special, far more valuable. It meant that opportunities in track & field that seemed unimaginable, that were still far off the radar just a few months ago, were now possible.
An opportunity that could one day equate to a Division 1 scholarship.
“When he ran that race, and other races, he’s running for a bigger purpose,” Tolman coach James Smith said. “He’s running for more than medals and things like that.”
Like most student-athletes from an inner-school like Tolman, Doe didn’t have it easy growing up. There’s no silver spoons here. There’s not even the typical amenities of your average everyday family.
He was born and raised in Liberia, where 80 percent of its population is below the poverty level. Seeking a better life for his family, his father and stepmom moved to Pawtucket with Doe and his other siblings a few years ago when the Tolman runner was 12 years old.
“He was trying to give us an opportunity he didn’t have,” he said. “When he got over here, he worked hard for my brothers and sisters. I am really grateful for what he did for us. Over here is a big opportunity for me. I push myself everyday to do better. Messing up is not an option.
Messing up is not an option. These are words that Doe lives by each and every day.
Here’s an individual that knows the value and importance of hard work; who knows that quitting or losing focus on that dream of prosperity, that dream of getting to a place where most in his native homeland have never reached, can’t happen. While most young teenagers, who participate in a high school sport, may hold a part-time job or might not even work due to an already heavy load of school work and training, Doe keeps the motor running 24/7.
His window of opportunity to perfect his craft in track & field comes in that brief hour and a half after school and, believe it or not, at the local gym around the midnight hour.
While most of his peers are at home relaxing from a long day of school and training, he’s still out there grinding away. He holds two jobs, working as a full-time crew member at McDonald’s and part-time host at Olive Garden seven days a week and for more than 50 hours. Five of those days, he spends at least an hour after work at Edge Fitness.
“I go there from about 11 to 12 (p.m.),” he said. “I then go home, shower and get a good night sleep.”
You’ll never hear complaining from the 6-foot-1,165-pound Doe, who appears to not have an ounce of body fat. In fact, when it comes to what he does on the track oval, he uses his never-ending work schedule as fuel to keep the dream alive.
“It kind of motivates me,” he said. “I know most of my competitors don’t do what I’m doing. They have a lot of time to put in the work. The little amount of time I have, I give it 100 percent when I step on the track. I always give 100 percent. Working hard and pushing myself is the number one thing that I have.”
All of this paints a picture of Doe. It paints a picture of an athlete whose recent success has a backstory. That his success is attributed to more than just his natural ability to run fast.
Any remaining Division 1 colleges still looking for a few top athletes to fill the roster, you might want to take a look at the Tigers’ rising new star. You might want to spend some time getting to know this very likable and talented young man.
Doe is an athlete that is just scratching the surface. An athlete whose talent is far from its full potential, especially when you consider how long he’s been involved in the sport. Doe only started competing during the indoor track season this past winter. Since he was a youth, his sport of choice was soccer. It was something he’s done since the young age of six in Liberia.
As for track, he barely knew anything about it.
“Soccer was just everything we did,” he said. “We’d wake up, have breakfast in the morning, and then hang out with our friends and play soccer. That’s all we did. My country, we didn’t really know about track too much, so we really didn’t do it. I came over here and started seeing people do track, seeing people run.”
Doe was a four-year varsity member of the school’s soccer team. He started as a freshman in the fall of 2019 when the Tigers made it all the way to the Division 1 state finals where they eventually lost to La Salle Academy. He was a captain of a squad that advanced to the quarterfinals this past year.
Doe was urged to run track by his friend Giovanni Alves, who competes on the indoor track squad. Alves noticed the leg quickness of Doe out on the soccer pitch.
“He told me, ‘You’re fast, you need to do track,” recalled the Tolman runner. “I told him, ‘Track is not for me. I’m not too fast..’ He kept bothering me so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll give it a try.’ I showed up to practice and saw these guys run and I was like, ‘I’m faster than these guys.’ I figured I’d give it a chance and I suddenly liked it.”
Doe’s first race was a Northern Division dual meet on Jan. 12 where he competed in the 1,000m. He finished first in his heat with a time of 3:10.36.
“I had just one day of practice because I had to work,” he said. “I was pretty impressed when I came in first. It was my first time racing and I didn’t know what I was doing. For the first two laps. I went crazy. I went like 400 (meter) pace, so I started to die down. But the other guys couldn’t keep up so I just held on to the finish line.”
Smith could sense from that initial race that Doe was not your typical runner. He was someone that had what most don’t often have when first introduced to the sport.
“I knew there was something special with him because I saw a kid push himself where a lot of people don’t go running-wise,” he said. “He took his body to limits that a lot of people would stop. He was truly, absolutely focused on crossing that line first in the race, and all the races that he has done since. He doesn’t have anything left.”
With the speed he exhibited in that 1K race, Smith moved Doe to the 600m where he dropped his time from 1:34.01 in a dual meet in late January to a PR of 1:26.51 at the New England Championships two months later. Doe earned a spot on the podium at the State Meet where he placed sixth overall in 1:27.0.
Smith, a 2006 graduate of North Kingstown, was a middle-distance specialist for the Skippers where he ran the 800m in the low two-minute range.. Coaching an athlete like Doe has given him great satisfaction for a sport he continues to have a passion for.
“It’s fun teaching someone something that you love and then seeing them follow through and giving it 100 percent. That’s encouraging,” he said. “It’s very admirable because he’ll actually sit there and text me on the phone and actually ask me what workouts I had doing certain events, be it the 800m or the 400m. With it just being his second season, it’s a question what event is his event, actually. We knew that the 1,000m, he was good at it, but it was too long. The 600m seemed to be his race, but he was dying a little bit. The 400m, he has the speed and is natural at it.”
Due to his newness of the sport, Doe is still learning how to race, still learning how to pace himself. Oftentimes, his initial reaction once the gun is fired is to just go all-out. In his 400m race at the Hawk Invite, he covered his first 200 meters in under 23 seconds. He gutted his way to the finish line, holding off a hard-charging Jacob Coates of Hendricken, who was second at 49.78..
“I got into that race and for the first 200 (meters) I wanted to run like 25 seconds,” he said. “I was a little too fast. I was 22 seconds. I kept the same pace until about 300 meters. After that, I started to die down. I was like, ‘Move those arms, move those arms. Keep moving those arms and don’t lose your form.’ I kept my form and tried my hardest. I got to the finish line and thought I did like 51, 52 (seconds). When I realized I broke 50 (seconds), I was shocked I had done that. The other guy from Hendricken, he was right there. I couldn’t look behind. I never looked behind, but I could hear his footsteps.”
Doe followed that performance with a victory at the Class A Championships on May 21 where he was timed in 51.05. Leading up to this week’s states, he is unbeaten in his speciality, clocking 50.90 in a league meet with Shea and Portsmouth on May 1 and winning the Central Division title less than a week later with a time of 52.71, a meet he also won the 200m in a best of 23.50.
“Working hard and pushing myself is the number one thing that I have,” he said. “I just push myself because that’s what I want to do. I don’t go in there to lose. I don’t want to leave my head down. I want to leave with a medal on my chest. When I get into a race, I just think this could be my future, so I just give it 100 percent. Every time I step on the track, I always try to PR. That’s what really pushes me.”
While life wasn’t easy in Liberia, Doe was able to develop some good family values in his younger years that he still carries today..
“It was pretty tough growing up,” he said. “I didn’t really have much. My family didn’t have much. They made sure we had food on the table and all that. I would stay out of trouble out there. There’s a lot of trouble out there, a whole bunch of people robbing and stuff like that. I always stayed out of trouble. My mom raised me like that. She raised me to be a good kid so I kind of keep that mentality wherever I go. I always do my best, always give it my hardest. I don’t have much so I push myself to be better. That will help me with my future, and I have to build my future.”
For Doe, that future is starting to take shape now with a pair of racing shoes on his feet. Perhaps soon, in the not-so-distant future, it might earn him a scholarship to a Division 1 program. He has already been accepted to St. Joseph’s College, a Division 3 school in Maine, where he was recruited for track and soccer. He works his two jobs now to help pay for his college tuition and also bring his mom to the states. She still lives in Liberia.
“That’s my goal,” said Doe, a solid student in the classroom with a report card populated with ‘A’s’ and ‘B’s’. “To get into college and save a lot of money so I can bring her over here. School and my mom are my priorities right now. I love my mom and I miss her so much. I just want to be with her again.”
The focus at Saturday ‘s State Meet for Doe is what it’s always been once he steps foot on the track – To be the very best at the end once that gun is fired.
“There’s no doubt, I could be number one in the state,” he said. “It would be my everything ( if I win). It’s my goal for me and my school. No one in the school has ever done this. It would be a huge milestone. I could motivate a lot of people that you can do anything if you push for it, especially my teammates.”
