and to their only state football championship. He has been described as the greatest football player in Michigan High School history. In track and field, he won the Michigan High School Track and Cross Country Athlete of the Year award in 1991. However, at one point Wheatley had quit the track team because the coach refused to let him run four individual events as a sprinter, jumper and hurdler. The coach relented, and Wheatley became a seven-time MHSAA Class B individual state champion by winning the long jump, 100 meters, 110-meter hurdles both his junior and senior seasons and winning the 200 meters as junior. In his junior year, he led his school to the state Class B track championships, and he became the first individual four-time track and field state champion in the same year in MHSAA history. Through the 2007 MHSAA season he was the MHSAA All class long jump record holder with a 1991 leap of , his high school 100 meters time (10.59 seconds, 1990) continues to rank third in MHSAA history, and his 110-meter hurdles time (13.87 sec., 1991) ranked seventh in MHSAA history. In addition, through the 2007 track season his hurdle time continued to be a MHSAA lower peninsula Class B state record. His long jump record has been retired. Wheatley became a high school All-American in track, and he was also a member of successful relay teams in high school. He had made a name for himself as a nine-time Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) state champion athlete. His athleticism and jumping abilities were further exhibited in basketball; Wheatley played for his high school basketball team and was able to slam dunk. He claims that against his high school rival, Inkster High School, he performed a dunk from the foul line, which is a difficult dunk made famous in slam dunk competitions by Julius Erving (Dr. J.) and later revived by Michael Jordan. Yet, despite his versatility and promise, Wheatley considered turning down athletic scholarships in hopes of obtaining an academic scholarship. College Wheatley chose to remain in metropolitan Detroit and attend the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship. He played running back for the football team for four years and ran on the track team for three years. As both a football player and track athlete he was highly decorated; he earned first-team All-Big Ten honors on teams that