Athletes find a Sparq at Velocity Sports in Baltimore

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My speed is better than your speed. <br>My cradle is better than your cradle.<br>My determination is better than your determination.<br>My hitting is better than your hitting.<br>Dunbar's Horace Miller saw messages such as these hand-written across the front of Nike T-shirts as he participated in the My Better Championship combine at Baltimore's Velocity Sports Performance center Saturday.<br>Miller figured he'd shoot for everything. His answer: My Sparq Rating is better than your Sparq Rating.<br>Saturday's gamut of events was intended to measure agility, speed, strength and endurance. At the end one score, called a Sparq Rating, is calculated to determine just how good of an overall athlete the participant is. That score can then be easily compared to others from around the county.<br>And while Saturday's scores aren't posted on the Nike website yet, Miller certainly put himself among the top of the Baltimore class.<br>Miller vertically leapt 37.4-inches, sprinted the 30-meter dash in 3.69 seconds, tossed a 3 kg. medicine ball 56.06 feet and hopped over a stationary object 61 times in 30 seconds. His vertical leap, 30-meter dash and medicine ball toss were the highest among his group of about 30 athletes and the vertical leap and 30-meter dash held the top spots for much of the afternoon.<br>"I got to try and do the best in everything," Miller said. "I plan on that being No. 1 in the nation. I gotta get that exposure. I need that."<br>Hundreds of athletes came to the Baltimore Velocity Sports Performance center to prove something or accomplish a goal. They wore their pride on their chests, proclaiming their best attribute, and then set to work at trying to improve on everything else.<br>Katie Cavanaugh, who was the first girl to come to the event, came because her lacrosse coach urged her to get better physically. Cavanaugh, who attends Pine Grove middle school, ended up posting a better endurance jump than a boy in her group.<br>"I like to compete and see what I can do to get better," Cavanaugh said. "It was nice to see the difference between high school competition and middle school. It's a big difference."<br>St. Frances Academy girl's lacrosse player JaNee Hill, came to prove herself against the opposite sex. When asked what she wanted to prove, Hill blurted out, "We're better than boys!" Just minutes later a girl in Hill's group, Jaquata Hill, nearly beat the only boy in the group in the medicine ball toss.<br>Wise's Denzel Wells wanted to win a trip to Nike Headquarters to compete in the My Better Championship. The top five scores at each weight class from around the country will compete for scholarship money in Oregon.<br>Most athletes came to get Sparq Rated because they saw it as a chance to get their names into the recruiting webs. College coaches, or anybody for that matter, can log onto http://www.sparqtraining.com/, to find an athlete's scores.<br>"Its opportunity and exposure," said Dulaney middle linebacker Brandon Phillips.<br>Phillips walked away from the center happy with his performance. His 56-foot medicine ball toss was among the top scores by the time he left at around 3 p.m. Other athletes weren't as satisfied.<br>"I think some of them have expectations of their performance, which is good," Velocity Sports Performance Director Justin Dominick said. "You can really see when they reach their scores or they feel they didn't test as well as they want. I think it's kind of an eye-opener for some of them, which is what we want. We want to see where they're at and what they can do to improve their performance and Sparq rating."<br>Even Miller found something he could work on. After all, he did place fourth in the endurance jump, a score he was a tad ashamed to show.<br>"I've got to work on that endurance jump -- make sure I do the best in everything," Miller said.<br>It was Miller's third combine and he plans on going to another at M

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