When Yannick (pronounced like “unique”) Fall entered Becton High School as a freshman, he was a self-described “goofball.”

“I think a lot of people in the building would have a few pretty funny stories about him when he was younger,” Becton coach Quin Geraghty said. “He wasn’t a bad kid but he was an excitable kid who would get caught in playing pranks and not taking anything seriously.”

“I goofed off a lot freshman year,” Fall admits. “One time when everyone else was in the shower after gym class, my friend and I snuck in a bottle of fart spray and started spraying it everywhere in the bathroom. We eventually owned up to it but we did stuff like that.”

Fall also joined the winter track team that Geraghty and girls coach Dave Dorsey re-started after a long absence. It took a while, but it lit a spark that eventually led to Fall being selected as the North Jersey Male Athlete of the Week, presented by HSS.

“Initially he just wanted to be a short sprinter and I saw some speed in him, but he had some knee issues that first winter season and I didn’t know if it would work,” Geraghty said.

By the end of the spring, Fall took second in the 400 at the Bergen County freshman championships and began to take it a little more seriously.

But not completely.

“I wanted to play a sport and I thought ‘why not go out for a new program,'” Fall, who lives in Maywood said. “But during my winter sophomore season, I wasn’t taking practice very seriously and coach Geraghty pulled me aside.”

“I told him he had a lot of potential and he was wasting it,” Geraghty said. “We had the talk and he cleaned things up right away.”

And he became obsessed with the sport and getting better.

“He made me dial in and I started to take it seriously,” Fall said. “I knew I was already one of the best 400 kids in school and I had to do better.”

Geraghty put him in the 400 hurdles as a sophomore and Fall excelled, nearly qualifying for the Group 2 state championships. The following autumn, Fall had improved so much as an athlete and a leader that he was made a captain and he made it his mission to make sure the younger Wildcats took things as seriously on the track as he had learned to do.

“I learned how to be more disciplined and realized that every time I put on the uniform, I was representing my team, my family and the community and not to let them down.”

He hasn’t.

He won the NJIC National 400 hurdles last spring but had bad luck at sectionals, hitting a hurdle and running his worst race of the year. He also took on the 110 high hurdles for the first time, winning the league title, making the Bergen Meet of Champions and running 15.41 in the prelims at sectionals before hitting the third hurdle in the finals and finishing one spot from states again.

But his passion for the sport has only intensified.

“I fell in love with track and I watch an album of videos on it all the time,” said Fall, who hopes to run in college and become a Certified Public Accountant like his mom and others in his family. “I’ve learned a lot about the sport, how to make the most of rest, how to hydrate properly, etc. and have passed it along to the younger kids.

“I’ve learned some lessons that I’ve taken into the classroom and made myself a better student.”

His sense of humor isn’t gone, it’s just harnessed. “I can read the room and crack jokes, especially about myself now,” Fall said. “I still love to laugh.”

The goofball has become a leader of a championship team. Who knows what that can lead to?

Yannick Fall

Sport: Indoor track

School: Becton

Class: Senior. Age: 17

Accomplishment: Set a school record in winning the 55 hurdles, took second in the 400 and anchored the second place 4-x-400 relay to lead the Wildcats to their first ever NJIC winter track championship.