The Colgate Women Games 55m hurdles record stood for 27 years until Friday, January 7, 2011, when Lateisha (Lala) Philson, a junior at Benjamin Cardozo High School (The Lady Judges) in Queens, New York, shattered the old mark of 8.9 seconds, set in 1984 by Monica Taylor, with a remarkable 7.67 seconds at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
The very next day at the staging of 17th Annual Hispanic Games, Lateisha stunned the New York Armory track and field fans by stopping the clock in another record breaking 7.90 in the 55m hurdles, to set a new Hispanic Games record.
“Lala is one of the most gifted and natural pure athlete I have been around in many years,” said Charles Weeks, who has been coaching Lateisha since she was six years old. “She’s the true embodiment of a phenomenon on the track.” Weeks is also the head coach for Ruff Kutz Track Club, in Queens, which Lateisha represents at USATF and AAU competitions.
Lateisha, who is of Bahamian roots, was only a freshman when she was called on by Cardozo’s head coach Gail Emmanuel to run the first leg on the Girls 4x4 team that won over a strong international field at the 2009 Reebok Grand Prix in New York. Since then, she has been an integral part of that mile relay squad, which has been ranked number one in the US since last year, and so far this season has posted the fastest Indoor time (3:46.95) in America, run at the Millrose Trials at the Armory January 13, 2011.
The young phenomenon wants to serve notice to the track and field world, noting that “my personal goal for this 2011 season is to lower my time in all my sprinting events every time I step on the track.”