Four years ago, if Jayce Newbill was asked what sport he’d compete in when he got to college, the last one he would’ve said was track and field.
“I only jumped 5 feet, 3 inches my freshman year (of high school),” Newbill said. “I was considering quitting and not wanting to do (track) again, just sticking to other sports or trying to figure something else out.”
Now Newbill is a top high jumper in Colorado for Berthoud High School, with a personal best height of six feet, eight inches, and he’s committed to compete for Colorado State track and field in the upcoming fall.
For a while, it was a question whether Newbill would continue competing in football or track, with the senior attending camps at schools like Kansas, Kansas State, CSU and Wyoming for football.
With these opportunities, Newbill was conflicted until a breakout performance at the Colorado High School 2025 Track & Field State Championships, where he tied for second in 3A with a jump of 6 feet, 7 inches.
“That (jump) was my deciding factor on if I wanted to play football or run track,” Newbill said.
One of the people who took notice of Newbill’s talents was CSU jumps coach Maria Creech. At a CSU-hosted meet last spring, Creech said Newbill approached the veteran coach to ask some questions about the program, and the two hit it off immediately.
“We made that connection that day,” Creech said. “I got to meet him, talk to him and see that interest from him. We kept communicating through the summer and got him up on a visit. There was really no question that (Newbill) and I didn’t get along right from the beginning, and that was a huge part of me wanting to recruit him as well.”
This agreeability is typical for Newbill, whose high school coach, Blaine Voth, said he has been demonstrating this character for years.
“Just the other day, he went over to the middle school to help the high jumpers,” Voth said. “That showed a lot of leadership because they needed help over there. The young kids that are high jumping, he’ll take his time and help those kids before he does his jumps.”
On top of helping his peers, Newbill is already working on bettering his performances with help from Creech.
“When I’d go up to those higher bars, I would just hit it on the way up,” Newbill said. “After talking to Creech, she told me to move back, so we moved my approach back. I’m jumping about three feet away from the mat, which is a lot more scary, but I’m glad that my approach is getting better to set me up for success.”
Newbill isn’t the only one looking forward to his joining the Rams; Creech said she’s glad she was able to keep him in state.
“I do like to recruit athletes from Colorado,” Creech said. “Yes, you can definitely entice athletes to come here, but I want athletes to come here because they want to be here or because they want to be coached by me. Recruiting locally, recruiting Colorado, is such a vibe for me.”
Newbill, who hails from Berthoud, Colorado, a town half an hour south of Fort Collins with a population of just under 14,000, is the platonic ideal of the athlete Creech seeks to be a Ram.
“(Newbill) loves the Rams,” Creech said. “Having that kind of love and desire for this program already, before he’s even in it — his mind is going to explode with how much he loves it here and how much he’s going to succeed on the track. Eventually, he’s going to be one of the leaders on this team. He’s got captain vibes, he’s got team leader vibes, and he’s going to be helping take this program to the next level.”
At home, the Spartan community is sad to see Newbill go, but not just because of the production and publicity he provides for the team.
“He will definitely be remembered around here,” Voth said. “The type of person that he is, he’s going to be a fantastic member of society, and he’s going to do great things with his life. Whatever he does, he’s going to be very successful, and he’s going to be remembered as someone who works hard.”
Through it all, Newbill said he knows he’s going to have to adjust to the college level of competition in just a few months.
“It’s going to be hard going from being one of the best jumpers in Colorado to probably the worst jumper on CSU when I get there,” Newbill said. “It’s going to be good for me ultimately. I’m there to get better. So I feel like once I get over that factor, it’s just having fun and jumping high.”
Reach Gideon Aigner at sports@collegian.com or on social media @GideonAigner.
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