State Record on Notice?
Here's a short history of how Pearl-Cohn has fared in the 4x100m Relay in recent years:
| Year | Time | Rank |
| 2014 | 42.37 | 9th |
| 2015 | 42.63 | 4th |
| 2016 | 41.71 | 1st |
| 2017 | 42.09 | 6th |
| 2018 | 41.96 | 1st |
| 2019 | 41.64 | 3rd |
| 2021 | 41.61 | 1st |
The Firebirds just keep getting faster. Now while the results are still outstanding for 2021 (I'm actively trying to get the correct format from Lipscomb), @coach_AD615 has a video on his Instagram that shows the performance however, it's protected by his account settings or I would embed the video in this article. All I can say handoff #2 could be better. That said, if it gets better, and each leg gets slightly faster over the course of the season, the record of 41.24 that was set in 1983 by Oakland High School has a good chance of going down finally.
On that topic, we should really be asking ourselves why that record has stood for so long? A coach tweeted this at me this week to which I responded:
This would be an impossible article to publish even at the end of the season I suspect. There are only a few schools in the state in which the football team and the track team are the same team. Higher profile 6A football powerhouses like Oakland and Maryville rarely send male sprinters to Murfreesboro. Instead, on a year over year basis the fastest teams are those like Austin East and Pearl Cohn who have under 700 students. It's unfortunate but points the larger issue about "specialization."
Ultimately, I don't care who breaks the record but it's long overdue.