Tom Kelly has always been the type of athlete who could do it all for Washington High School.

So after prosperous careers filling a variety of roles -- and filling them well -- for the Little Prexies' basketball and football teams over the past four years, Kelly found a new trick: track and field.

Having never truly participated in the sport until this, his senior season, Kelly has proven to be just as adept at it as he was in being an all-section performer in basketball and football.

"I should have come out [for the sport] when I was a freshman," Kelly said. "I like it. It's been a good experience."

A wide receiver/quarterback/safety on the Washington football team and shooting guard/point guard/small forward for the Prexies' basketball squad, Kelly has posted times and scores the envy of many during his first season of track and field.

Kelly won the high jump event at the South Hills Classic two weeks ago with a leap of 6 feet (although he has a career high of 6 feet, 2 inches in a meet and has jumped as high as 6-4 in practice). He also runs each of the hurdles events, has competed in the triple jump, is the anchor leg on the 1,600-meter relay team and has competed in the 400-meter relay.

Of course, running excellent split times in the relays means he's proficient enough at running that he easily could be a terrific 100-, 200- or 400-meter runner.

"There's just not enough of him to go around with 18 events on the track," said Bill Britton, the Prexies track and field coach in the spring and football coach in the fall.

"We'd really like to see him try javelin, but we can't pull him away from the other coaches on the track to let him try javelin. It's a good problem to have to have a quality kid like Tommy."

After averaging a team-high 14.5 points per game in basketball and accumulating such highlights as rushing, passing and preventing touchdowns in football, like many natural athletes, Kelly expected track to come easy.

In some respects, it has for him; Britton marvels at how Kelly has adapted to the technical aspects of some of the events.

"The hurdles are hard," Kelly said. "It looks easy, but it's really not."

He has posted times faster than 43.5 seconds in the 300-meter hurdles event already, a time that would have placed him about in the top 10 of the WPIAL championship meet last season, even though Kelly just learned how to compete in the event and hasn't come close to peaking yet this young season.

Such a phenomenon is typical for Kelly, who Britton said possesses great leadership skills and attitude and who recently was named student of the month at Wash High.

His times in the 110-meter hurdles are in the "low 18s," according to Britton, already good enough to project him into a WPIAL qualifying time. Britton said Kelly's splits in the 1,600 meter relay have been close to 51 seconds, which would put him in the top five of last season's WPIAL. The relay itself has run a 3:38, which would roughly have put it in the top 10 last season.

Britton's projections easily put Kelly in the top 10 in the WPIAL for the 100-meter dash (helping the 400-meter relay team achieve that in the process) and has similar estimates for his 800-meter run.

And, of course, a projected high jump of 6-4 has the potential of winning the WPIAL championship. The list goes on and on; it's only a matter of deciding what events.

"Tom hasn't even hit his first postseason yet, and he's already setting record marks," said Britton.

"It doesn't surprise me, anything he does," basketball coach Ron Faust said. "He has natural talent."

Of all the events, the 1,600-meter relay is Kelly's favorite.

"Our times have been going down," he said. "Unlike a lot of teams, we have four good people at that event. We'll be competitive at that no matter whom we race."

Although Kelly isn't sure in what events he will compete at next month's WPIAL championships, he mentioned the 1,600 relay, the 400 relay, 300 hurdles and high jump as possibilities.