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Vols track star Coleman runs blazing 40-yard dash time

Christian Coleman was an Olympian and NCAA indoor national champ in 2017. UT got him to run a 40-yard dash on a turf football field.

Credit: WBIR
Tennessee track star Christian Coleman, a 2016 Olympian.

Christian Coleman is fast. We already knew that. The Vol track star made Team USA for the Rio Olympics.

Now we know just how fast he is in terms football fans can relate to - the 40-yard dash.

Tennessee had him run a laser-timed 40 on the Vols indoor turf football field.

His time? 4.12

{"url":"https://twitter.com/Vol_Track/status/859136135200735232","author_name":"UT Track & Field/XC","author_url":"https://twitter.com/Vol_Track","html":"&#lt;blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"&#gt;&#lt;p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"&#gt;A lot of talk about 40-yard dashes this weekend, so we asked the fastest man in the NCAA &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/__coleman\"&#gt;@__coleman&#lt;/a&#gt; to run one. &#lt;a href=\"https://t.co/CpgWYvqnCI\"&#gt;pic.twitter.com/CpgWYvqnCI&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— UT Track & Field/XC (@Vol_Track) &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/Vol_Track/status/859136135200735232\"&#gt;May 1, 2017&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;\n&#lt;script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;","width":550,"height":null,"type":"rich","cache_age":"3153600000","provider_name":"Twitter","provider_url":"https://twitter.com","version":"1.0"}

To put that in perspective, former Washington Huskies (and now Bengals) wide receiver John Ross broke the 40-yard dash record at the NFL Combine in February with a time of 4.22.

Coleman's time is a full tenth of a second better.

Vols head football coach Butch Jones was quick to jump on it with a tweet asking Coleman "what's your cleat size?" with a smirking emoji.

{"url":"https://twitter.com/UTCoachJones/status/859146575003742209","author_name":"Butch Jones","author_url":"https://twitter.com/UTCoachJones","html":"&#lt;blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"&#gt;&#lt;p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"&#gt;&#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/__coleman\"&#gt;@__coleman&#lt;/a&#gt; what's your cleat size? 😏 &#lt;a href=\"https://t.co/90QODTU9UB\"&#gt;https://t.co/90QODTU9UB&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Butch Jones (@UTCoachJones) &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/UTCoachJones/status/859146575003742209\"&#gt;May 1, 2017&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;\n&#lt;script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;","width":550,"height":null,"type":"rich","cache_age":"3153600000","provider_name":"Twitter","provider_url":"https://twitter.com","version":"1.0"}

Coleman did play football in high school. He was an all-state defensive back and wide receiver in Georgia. But, his track coach Beth Alford-Sullivan was quick to reply to Butch saying, "not a chance Coach, he only wears Nike superfly elites!"

{"url":"https://twitter.com/balfordsullivan/status/859147830044315650","author_name":"Beth","author_url":"https://twitter.com/balfordsullivan","html":"&#lt;blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"&#gt;&#lt;p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"&#gt;Not a chance Coach... He only wears Nike superfly elites! &#lt;a href=\"https://t.co/Dl7mI0NiB3\"&#gt;https://t.co/Dl7mI0NiB3&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Beth (@balfordsullivan) &#lt;a href=\"https://twitter.com/balfordsullivan/status/859147830044315650\"&#gt;May 1, 2017&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;\n&#lt;script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;","width":550,"height":null,"type":"rich","cache_age":"3153600000","provider_name":"Twitter","provider_url":"https://twitter.com","version":"1.0"}

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