Tinch adds another memorable chapter in return to sport by joining reigning World gold medalist Holloway, along with Roberts and Crittenden III on U.S. roster to race in Budapest 

By David Woods for DyeStat

EUGENE, Ore. – Cordell Tinch represents a movie or a documentary. Make it a movie because documentaries are based on facts, and his is a more fictional character.

He is making Green Bay residents pay attention to track and field in addition to the Packers. Never mind about Aaron Rodgers.

“Aaron’s gone. So I think it’s my turn,” Tinch said.

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The 22-year-old hurdler – away from the sport for three years while selling cell phones and operating machinery to make toilet paper – capped an implausible rise by making Team USA for next month’s World Championships at Budapest, Hungary.

Actually, that is fiction again. It ain’t over. Tinch’s story is at the beginning, and he is fast enough to win gold medals at a worlds or Olympics.

“I think it’s just a testament to everything that this sport really is,” he said. “There’s highs, there’s lows, there’s good, there’s bad, there’s ugly. I just kind of embody it.”

Tinch finished second to Daniel Roberts in the 110-meter hurdles Sunday night to close out the four-day Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field.

Roberts clocked 13.05 seconds to Tinch’s 13.08 to repeat as champion and win his third career national title. Freddie Crittenden III made the team by finishing third in 13.23. Trey Cunningham, the 2022 world silver medalist, was fifth in 13.29.

The race was run without Grant Holloway, who has a bye to Budapest as reigning world champion, and NFL receiver Devon Allen, who was injured recently. That left Tinch, a native of Titletown, as the NFL’s proxy.

He can sure play football. In an 11-1 season for Bay Port High School, he caught 70 passes for 964 yards and nine touchdowns.

But the track he chose was track, and it was a winding one. At Pittsburg State this year, he won five NCAA Division 2 titles and ran a world-leading hurdles time of 12.96 after the college season.

He began college at Minnesota but left and went to Kansas. He was a Big 12 hurdles champion and conference freshman of the year in 2019. But he became ineligible at Kansas, left school and returned to Green Bay. Then came the pandemic.

“Those people at home know everything I’ve been through,” Tinch said. “They know my great days. They saw me when I first came home and I was not in the best mental space. They saw me have bad days.

“To be here, all of them at home who know me, this is more than me qualifying. My mom qualifying, my dad qualifying. There’s a lot more to it than me.”

After KU, Tinch transferred to Coffeyville but didn’t stay. Then came the odd jobs. He was persuaded to return to school and enrolled at Pittsburg State.

He manifested a track version of the baseball movie “The Natural,” starring Robert Redford. Tinch didn’t pick up where he left off. He was faster. Maybe the fastest man in Green Bay since Bob Hayes visited with the Dallas Cowboys.

“I’m excited to get home back in Green Bay, obviously,” Tinch said. “For as much as I hate on the place when I’m there, I love that city. The city loves me just as much. With the amount of texts on my phone on my way back over here, the city is ready for me to be there.”

Global podiums – and maybe a film – await him, too.

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.