MOULTRIE — Colquitt County’s Jamal Hayes will head off to Louisiana State University on Friday to continue his track career and he will leave behind a curious statistic.

Hayes, perhaps the most successful track athlete produced by Colquitt County, has three national championships to his credit.

Surprisingly, he has no state championships.

In his final race as a high school athlete, Hayes won the 400 meters at the recent USA Track and Field’s Junior Olympics at Hughes Stadium on the campus of Morgan State University in Baltimore.

His 47.23 brought him a third gold medal in a national championship race. Last year, he was on the national championship 4×400 and 4×100 relay teams at the National Championships held in Indianapolis, Ind.

Hayes was coveted by some of the top Division I track programs in the country and has cast his lot with LSU. The Tigers’ track staff was not at all worried that he did not win a state title as high school runner. His 48.1 in the 400 was good for second place at the state meet in May.

Hayes just shrugs when pondering the incongruity.

“I think I just took it too seriously,” he said. “Some things just don’t happen like they are supposed to.”

But Hayes obviously was impressive enough to keep the calls and visits from college recruits coming.

In fact, while he says his count may be off by one or two, he says he has won 50 gold medals in his pre-collegiate track career, including the three national championships.

Also among his awards are eight silver and 17 bronze medals and a number of other ribbons, plaques and other awards.

He still has the Colquitt County middle school records for the 200, 400, long jump and 4×100 relay and his high school times in the 200 and 400 and his long jump may stand for some time.

Hayes helped lead Colquitt County to the Region 1-AAAAA track championship the last two years, the first two times the Packers have won region titles in track.

And Hayes has continued to pick up little tricks of the trade this summer as his times continued to drop.

During the 2005 summer season, Hayes participated in two circuits and get plenty of experience and exposure.

This summer, with the college decision made, he cut back his competition schedule.

Hayes ran in the prestigious Nike meet in Greensboro, N.C., and had a personal record 47.85 in lane 8 in the 400.

In the Golden South meet in Orlando, he placed second in the 400, running a 47.7.

Hayes received a bye to the USTF Regionals in Gwinnett County and ran a personal record 47.22 in lane 6.

That set him up for the trip to Baltimore and what became a memorable finish.

Because of the high prelim time among the eight finalists, he was relegated to lane 8, not his favorite place to start and run from.

“I was real skeptical,” Hayes said. “I just winged it.”

He couldn’t have winged it better, taking the gold medal in his final effort before heading off to Baton Rouge.

The victory was the culmination of taking advantage of some tweaking of techniques over the summer.

David Chaplin, his 2005 4×400 and 4×100 teammate who has transferred from Iowa and will run at Alabama this year, helped Hayes “clean up my form.”

He also learned to run with his thumbs out.

“Your knees follow your thumbs,” he said.

Since Nationals, Hayes has continued to work out, getting ready for his first college season.

LSU traditionally has gone after junior college sprinters, Hayes said.

“Obviously, they see a lot of potential in me,” he said. “I’ve still got a lot to improve on. I need to get stronger.

“But my feeling is, if you give me the tools, I can work with them.”