The winds have yet to pick up as they do most days now, so there is nothing to hamper him as he starts his run on the long jump path at the UNM track and field stadium. And when he does jump, his reach is farther than most people would try.

It’s only a workout, but he’s got his serious face on — the one the kids at Sandra’s School of Dance find funny.

The young Lobo is already a champion, having won the long jump in his first visit to the Mountain West Conference track and field championships last week. Now he is preparing for the NCAA qualifying meet in Eugene, Ore., next week. Then it’s on to the NCAA championships in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 1-4.

“The sky’s the limit,” Spencer says of his potential. “Wherever God places me.”

He’s speaking of track, but it’s also true of the rest of his life. He’s not just a jumper, not only a runner. He’s a student, a teacher and a dancer.

The whole world is there for his taking.

Spencer was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Mateo, Calif. He didn’t run track until his junior year in high school.

“My first sport, believe it or not, was wrestling,” Spencer says. “I know a lot of people are shocked when they hear that.”

He also played football before going out for track. One day, one of his friends on the San Mateo High track team got hurt and Spencer was asked to fill in.

He entered the long jump and won. He ran the 100 — without blocks — and won.

People started telling him he had a shot at doing great things on the track.

“I was definitely touched with a gift,” Spencer says. “And it was a blessing to get that opportunity. If I hadn’t been out on that field that day, it just wouldn’t have happened.”

He came to New Mexico, he says, because he liked the coaches, liked the track community, liked that Albuquerque held national meets here. His college athletics clock started in the 2009-10 indoor season, but a torn hamstring sidelined him, making him a freshman for the 2011 outdoor season.

“Even though he’s been here for 19 months,” Lobo track and field coach Joe Franklin says, “it’s really been about five, because a lot of it was injury-related.

“When kids get hurt, you kind of get defined by your work ethic. You’re injured, you’re not really part of things. Can you come back? He’s come back better than before he was injured. Now he’s one of the better young jumpers in the country.”

Spencer long jumped 23 feet, 10 3/4 inches to win the MWC, despite an injured heel.

“My competitiveness took over,” Spencer says. “It was one of those things where, regardless of the conditions and how you feel, you’ve just got to get out there and do the best you can. Thankfully, I was blessed enough to get out and put a nice mark out there.”

Franklin says Spencer is also a gifted sprinter, but because of his injuries, he’s been limited to jumping this outdoor season.

But before he ran, before he jumped, he danced.

“I’ve always danced,” he says.

He’s a hip-hop dancer and performs for companies in San Francisco.

“When I came here,” he says, “I didn’t know any dancers.”

But he saw an ad in the newspaper for a dance instructor at Sandra’s School of Dance. They’d never seen anything like his style, and they took him in.

“It’s really humbling,” Spencer says. “If you’re going to be an athlete, you have to be coachable. For me, being taught, and at the same time teaching, it’s like a funnel. I get information coming in, then share it with other people.

“I love sharing my passion with my kids, seeing people like me who want to succeed, to take it as far as anybody’s taken it.”

A few of his students have seen him compete.

“They laugh,” he says, “They say, ‘It’s so weird seeing you so serious.’”

He’s also serious about school. He’s studying psychology (and is part of that discipline’s honor society) and criminology.

“I’ve always been fascinated with human behavior,” he says.

“First and foremost,” Franklin says, “what makes him special is that he’s a very good student. He pays attention to his curriculum, to what he’s going to do when he’s 40.”

Spencer says he wants to work with-inner city kids, wants to motivate them, “show them academic success isn’t bad, that it’s a positive thing.”

When Spencer first flew into Albuquerque on his recruiting trip, he and his father looked over the city.

“Where’s the green? Where’s the water?” they wondered.

Now Spencer sees nothing but possibilities and the impact he can make.

— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal