Villanova’s Maree Ran Into 1500-5K History

In 1981, Sydney Maree intended to make his final race in a Villanova uniform one to remember.

That would take something special.

A year earlier, Maree won the 1500-meter title at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships to become the first runner with career titles in both the 1500 and 5000, as one year before that, he won the 5K in a meet-record 13:20.63.

And then two weeks before he toed the starting line at the 1981 NCAA Outdoor Championships, Maree ran a 3:52.44 mile that remains the fastest recorded by a collegian outdoors.

Could Maree top that?

Well, Maree knew he would have his work cut out for himself in the 1500.

Before the final, he observed “We’re going to have some pretty good kickers in this race.” Two of those kickers, in particular, were two-time 1500 runner-up Todd Habour of Baylor and BYU’s Doug Padilla, who had turned back four-time NCAA Indoor mile champ Suleiman Nyambui of UTEP in the 2-mile back in March.

Maree solved that situation by running fast from the start. He led by five meters after two laps and then nearly doubled the margin with a lap to go. Maree then ran his fastest 400 at 55.5 to win by 2.82 seconds in 3:35.30, another meet record. At the time, the only collegian to ever run faster was Jim Ryun of Kansas when he set a then-world record 3:33.1 in a 1967 postseason race.

“I actually wanted to go faster, but I didn’t hear my split on the third lap,” said Maree, who remains the only runner with meet records in both the 1500 and 5K, the latter surviving until 2014, while the 1500 mark still exists to this day.

Maree finished the 1981 season as part of one of the most exciting mile seasons ever. The South African native had become a permanent U.S. resident, allowing him to compete on the international circuit for the first time (Athletes from South Africa were then barred to compete on the circuit due to opposition to the country’s apartheid policy).

While Britain’s Seb Coe and Steve Ovett famously traded headlines that included breaking the world record three times, Maree came on late in the summer, handing Ovett a rare loss with a time of 3:48.83, then third-fastest all-time. At the end of September Maree won the inaugural 5th Avenue Mile in 3:47.52, which is still the course record.

No One Vaulted Like Nilsen At NCAAs

The pole vault has been part of the program at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships since the beginning. That means for nearly 100 years and 98 installments of the meet, a winner – and sometimes, multiple winners in the case of a tie – has/have been crowned in that event.

No man went higher – or has won by a larger margin of victory – than Chris Nilsen.

The South Dakota standout announced his presence to the collegiate track & field world as a freshman when he won the pole vault at the 2017 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships with a clearance of 5.70m (18-8¼). At the time, Nilsen was just the second freshman since the turn of the century to top the podium (Andrew Irwin of Arkansas, 2012).

After a pair of top-3 finishes at NCAA meets, Nilsen tasted victory once again at the 2018 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships inside Historic Hayward Field.

As the rest of the field whittled itself by attrition – all but four men were out by the fourth bar (5.55m/17-10½) – Nilsen only got stronger. Nilsen cleared that aforementioned height on his second attempt to become the de facto winner and then didn’t miss another bar until after he broke Lawrence Johnson’s 22-year-old meet record by one centimeter with his first-attempt clearance of 5.83m (19-1½). That also gave Nilsen a 28-centimeter (11-inch) victory, a margin that matched the previous meet best established by Bob Seagren of Southern California 51 years earlier.

A worthy adversary joined the collegiate ranks the following year and pushed Nilsen to new heights at the NCAA Championships: Mondo Duplantis of LSU. After Duplantis broke the collegiate indoor record and won the NCAA Indoor crown, he and Nilsen were set for an old-fashioned Texas shootout at the outdoor championships hosted by the University of Texas.

Duplantis came in as the favorite once again, having broken the collegiate outdoor record just a few weeks earlier, but Nilsen didn’t back down. Both Duplantis and Nilsen cleared 5.80m (19-0¼) and passed on the next height, which meant they both would attempt 5.90m (19-4¼). A first attempt clearance by Nilsen put pressure on Duplantis, who missed and forwent his final two tries to meet Nilsen at 5.95m (19-6¼). Nilsen went up and over on his first attempt once again to better his own meet record; Duplantis was unable to match.

It’s safe to say Nilsen was on the right track once again in 2020 as a senior, where he sought to become just the fourth man in the past 57 years to win three consecutive pole vault titles at the outdoor championships, joining Dave Roberts of Rice from 1971 to 1973, Earl Bell of Arkansas State from 1975 to 1977 and Istvan Bagula of George Mason from 1990 to 1992.

Back in February, Nilsen broke Duplantis’ collegiate indoor record with his 5.93m (19-5½) topper at the Nebraska Tune-Up and eyed an even bigger jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships, as well as during the ensuing outdoor campaign where the Kansas City, Missouri, native traditionally shined. None of those ever came to be as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the rest of the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Arizona’s Skieresz Nearly Lapped The Field

Amy Skieresz of Arizona could see her nearest pursuer in both of her 10,000-meter titles at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

That’s because she nearly lapped the entire field both times.

Skieresz had huge margins of victory in those two races – 63.39 seconds in 1997, 62.64 seconds in 1998 – the largest, in fact, recorded in NCAA DI history in any running event, including cross country.

Amazingly, Skieresz didn’t seem to need to win so convincingly, especially considering she was doubling back each time in the 5000 meters. She won both of those 5K races comfortably, as well, and remains the only woman with a pair of outdoor distance doubles at the NCAA DI level.

“I was shocked to win both of them,” Skieresz said of her first double in 1997.

Nobody else was shocked: Skieresz had won the NCAA cross country title in the fall, the NCAA Indoor 5K with a meet record in March and then debuted in the 10K with a 2-minute victory at the Penn Relays in 32:31.65, less than 10 seconds off the collegiate record at the time.

Skieresz seemed unbeatable – and for the most part she was – never coming close to losing an NCAA track race. She explained to Jeff Hollobaugh of Track & Field News after completing the 5K/10K combo for the second time in 1998 that she takes every race seriously.

“I go into every single race, whether it’s a dual meet or the NCAA, thinking that,” said the native of Agoura Hills, California. “I get as nervous as I would for anything. You can’t count anybody out. It could be anybody’s day. You can’t say, ‘Oh well, let’s coast through this race.’ I don’t believe in that. Every time I step to the line, it’s a major race.”

In cross country, Skieresz forged a career like no other man or woman in NCAA DI history, finishing in the top-2 four times, adding runner-up finishes in 1995, 1997 and 1998 to the individual title she claimed in 1996.

Walder’s Leaps Stand Test Of Time

When you own the most career field event titles in the combined NCAA Division I Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Championships, it can be difficult to select the greatest of them all.

This is the case with Erick Walder of Arkansas, whose 10 crowns has him with one more than the next winningest field eventers: A pair of other Razorback long jump/triple jump greats in Michael Conley (1983-85) and Robert Howard (1996-98).

Walder’s collection is unique in at least a couple of ways, at least compared to his fellow alumni.

First, the majority of Walder’s wins came in the long jump (6 of the 10), while Conley and Howard were more successful in the triple jump (5 and 6 of 9, respectively). Second, each of Walder’s NCAA wins contributed to him being the highest-scoring Arkansas athlete on a national championship team – that’s saying something for a program with 30 combined indoor/outdoor track & field team championships.

Walder made history with each of his three NCAA Outdoor long jump victories. The native of Mobile, Alabama, won in 1992 with the then-two longest leaps in meet history at 8.47m (27-9½) and 8.46m (27-9¼). In 1993, Walder became the first collegian to nail a legal 28-footer, spanning that mark exactly at 8.53m. Those three jumps remain the longest in meet history, and the 28-0 remains the longest low-altitude outdoor jump by a collegian.

An incredible nail-biter ensued in 1994, some two months after Walder set the still-standing collegiate record of 8.74m (28-8¼) in El Paso. After three rounds at the NCAA Championships, Walder was in an unusual position – tied for first with Middle Tennessee State’s Roland McGhee as both had marks of 8.34m (27-4½). Despite jump-by-jump drama in the final three rounds, neither improved. The result was decided on the better second-best mark, which Walder claimed by just five centimeters (two inches) at 8.24m (27-0½). It remains the closest long jump countback competition in meet history.

“I had no idea coming in that it would be that tight,” Walder told Jon Hendershott of Track & Field News. “I was hoping I could get a good jump early, then kind of take it easy. But that wasn’t the case. It was a great competition.”

For McGhee it was his third NCAA runner-up finish to Walder, including one indoors.

“Erick always jumps well when he’s behind,” McGhee said. “If he sees someone catch out in front of him, he goes out there and gets ‘em.”

Walder was also successful indoors and remains the only man or woman with three NCAA long jump titles in both meets. His indoor best of 8.43m (27-8) in 1994 is second only in NCAA Indoor meet history to Carl Lewis of Houston, who jumped 8.48m (27-10) in 1981.

Butler’s Phillips First Three-Time NCAA Winner

Name a miler who became an elite quarter-miler.

Kudos if you included Hermon Phillips, whose three 440-yard titles at the NCAA Championships from 1925-27 made him the meet’s first three-time winner in any event. 

Phillips was a four-time Indiana high school state mile champion from Rushville, who entered Butler University in nearby Indianapolis. He had also won the 1923 national interscholastic mile in a meet record 4:30.6. 

To say Phillips made an immediate impact for the Bulldogs would be an understatement. As a freshman in 1924, he defeated seven-time national AAU mile champ Joie Ray in an indoor 880-yard race and was named captain of the Butler track & field team for his efforts.

By 1925, Phillips displayed the range that made him a feared prep athlete as a 14-year-old, where he would be older runners in almost any event. At the Drake Relays that year, Phillips was part of three Bulldog relay teams that set meet records and then became the program’s first NCAA champion by winning the 440, about an hour before teammate Glen Gray won the 220. 

Phillips continued his winning ways at the NCAA Championships in 1926 and 1927 with record-setting performances. In the former, Phillips clocked a time of 48.7, bettering the meet record of 49.0 set by Olympian Frank Shea of Pittsburgh in the inaugural NCAA Championships in 1921. The following year, Phillips lowered his meet record to 48.5 to win his third-straight crown.

Only Morgan State’s George Rhoden (1950-52) and UTEP’s Bert Cameron (1980-81, 1983) have as many NCAA wins as Phillips among men in the 400/440. 

Phillips made the 1928 Olympic team, finishing sixth after equaling the world record of 47.4 earlier in the year. Upon his return from the Olympics, Butler hired Phillips to be its new coach. During his 19-year tenure, he coached Butler’s only other men’s NCAA track & field champions (besides him and Gray) – Joe Sivak in the 1930 mile and Bert Nelson in the 1932 high jump.

Oregon’s Washington Made NCAA History In 2016

Before 2016, no freshman woman had completed the same-year sweep of the 100 and 200 in the history of the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. 

Look closer and you’ll see that only one freshman had won the 100 in the previous 34 years (Angela Williams of Southern California in 1999 on her way to four in a row) and the best finish by a freshman in the half-lap final was national runner-up (Muna Lee of LSU in 2001 and Shalonda Solomon of South Carolina in 2005). 

So, it would have been easy to write off Ariana Washington’s chances that year purely based on where she stood coming into the meet. The Oregon freshman sat in a tie for 11th on the seasonal Descending Order List in the 100 at 11.18 and 26th in the 200 at 22.97 – both marks that she turned in at the Pac-12 Outdoor Championships less than one month earlier. 

Many learned over the years to doubt “Hayward Magic” at their own peril. 

Washington starred on the big stage in front of her hometown crowd at Hayward Field.

After posting the fastest time in the semifinal of the 100, Washington beat Ashley Henderson of San Diego State by 0.01 seconds for the national title (10.95 to 10.96 with a 2.6 m/s tailwind). It was also the Ducks’ fourth 100-meter crown in the past five years: Washington followed in the footsteps of two-time champion English Gardner (2012 and 2013) and 2015 The Bowerman winner Jenna Prandini. 

Less than one hour later, Washington returned to the track for the final of the 200. This time, she had posted the second fastest mark in the semifinal and would start alongside teammate and top qualifier Deajah Stevens. Together, they wanted to score big points to allow Oregon to keep pace with eventual champion Arkansas in the team standings. 

Once the gun went off, Stevens and Washington left the other competitors standing still. And by the time the race ended – some 22.21 seconds later – Washington made history and posted the third fastest wind-legal winning time in meet history behind Dawn Sowell’s collegiate record in 1989 (22.04) and Dezerea Bryant’s mark from the previous year (22.18).

Washington continued her winning ways at the NCAA Championships as a sophomore, matching her outdoor 200-meter crown with the indoor version in 2017. And while she never topped the podium again as an individual — a runner-up finish in the 200 at the outdoor meet that year would be best she did — Washington helped the Ducks complete the only Triple Crown by an NCAA DI women’s program as they won national titles in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field during the 2016-17 academic year.

Juskus Capped Whirlwind Week With Title

Buckle up!

You won’t believe the week Mike Juskus had back in 1981.

Saturday, May 30 

Juskus won his third career javelin title at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a heave of 75.80m (248-8) and helped lead Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) to its second of what would be five consecutive team crowns.

After winning his first title as a walk-on freshman in 1978 and finishing runner-up the following year, Juskus hit his stride as a junior. Juskus ended up taking the 1980 crown by more than 33 feet at 78.76m (258-5), a mark that nobody has come within 10 feet of at the NCAA DIII Outdoor Championships since that day.

Wednesday, June 3 

Juskus became a new father.

His wife, Doreen, gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Dania Lynn.

Saturday, June 6

Juskus, making his fourth appearance in a row at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships as a top finisher at the NCAA DIII meet, became the last NCAA DIII athlete to win an NCAA DI javelin title when he launched the implement 83.26m (273-2) on his sixth and final attempt of the rain-soaked afternoon (The meet had been delayed an hour and a half due to thunderstorms). It happened to be the farthest throw by a collegian that year and matched what was the third-best winning mark in meet history up to that point.

“The last two throws before that weren’t so good,” Juskus later told the Morristown (N.J.) Daily Record, his hometown newspaper. “I knew I had a lot more behind that one.”

Juskus also said he self-diagnosed and corrected a problem from those previous attempts (He had been “squaring his shoulders,” which forced each of his throws to the right).

And while Juskus still wasn’t sure that he had done enough to win, fans who remained in attendance at Bernie Moore Stadium had a better look at the proceedings from the bleachers.

“The crowd definitely told me different, though,” Juskus said.

Plus, it would be hard to discount the extra motivation Juskus had that day, too.

“I was down to my last throw and what went through my mind was my baby girl, who is 72 hours old now,” Juskus told the Associated Press after the meet.

Stanford Had Opponents Seeing (Cardinal) Red

Seeing red – Cardinal red – in the Men’s 10,000 Meters at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships became common in the late 1990s. 

After all, Stanford put together matching 1-2-3 sweeps in the 1998 and 1999 10K to become the first program with more than one such collection in meet history (all events, men and women). 

But 2000 was special – both in the 10K race and the entire meet. Incredibly, Stanford sent six runners to start the 10K, the first track final on the Cardinal’s quest to improve on team runner-up finishes the previous two years. 

Brad Hauser, the 1998 NCAA 10K champion, led Stanford to what looked like yet another 1-2-3 finish. Jason Balkman, second in the 1999 sweep, followed closely – but Brad’s twin brother Brent began to stagger approaching the finish line while in third place. Brent – the only Cardinal runner who was part of both the 1998 and 1999 sweeps – somehow finished, falling across the line as Stanford went 1-2-4 for 23 team points, one digit less than what a 1-2-3 would generate. 

Would the point difference matter? 

No. As it turned out, that was about the only thing that went wrong for Stanford in 2000. 

Brad completed a 10K-5K double victory as the distance-strong Cardinal went 1-4-6 in the 5K (Brent taking a career-best fourth in that event ahead of Jonathon Riley) as well as 1-2 in the 1500 with Gabe Jennings and Michael Stember, who was also fourth in the 800. The only other points for Stanford came from Toby Stevenson’s second in the pole vault. 

With 72 points, Stanford was able to finally overtake powerful Arkansas (59), winners of the eight previous team crowns. It was the Cardinal’s fourth team title — first since 1934. 

It was also the first track & field NCAA championship for head coach Vin Lananna, who told Sieg Lindstrom of Track & Field News: “We decided that we were going to make our own definition of what success was going to be for us this weekend. We weren’t going to pay attention to what anybody else was doing.”

Ostrander Made Steeplechase History

When you’re best known for your dominant victories in the junior section of the famed Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska – as well as dipping under the long-standing course record in your first foray into the senior portion of said competition – ascending the NCAA podium might seem rather tame in comparison.

At least that’s what we might be able to decipher from what Alaska native Allie Ostrander accomplished during her legendary collegiate career with the Boise State Broncos.

By the time Ostrander turned pro following her redshirt junior season in 2019, she became the only woman – and just fourth athlete overall – in the history of the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships to win three consecutive steeplechase titles (James Munyala, UTEP; Daniel Lincoln, Arkansas; Anthony Rotich, UTEP). You might remember 2009 The Bowerman winner Jenny Barringer (now Simpson) nabbed three crowns in the event while competing for Colorado, but they came in the span of four years (2006, 2008 and 2009).

Ostrander topped the steeplechase dais for the first time in 2017, as just the third freshman woman to do so in meet history. She crossed the finish line in 9:41.31 after a blistering final lap of 71.89 seconds, where she gapped the field and eventually put seven seconds between herself and New Hampshire’s Elinor Purrier, who shared the lead at the bell (Purrier ended up fourth).

That same year, Ostrander doubled back less than an hour and a half later in the 5000. A customary tactical race in a distance final (20 women were within four seconds of the lead with 2000 meters to go) allowed Ostrander to get her legs back under her. By the time the tempo quickened, Ostrander had more than enough left to finish fourth in 15:46.18, the fastest time by a freshman at the meet since 2011.

Ostrander did the steeplechase-5K two-step once again in 2018, winning the former by more than six seconds in 9:39.28 and holding on for an eighth-place finish in the latter. In doing so, Ostrander became the only woman in meet history to score in both events at two separate editions of the NCAA Championships.

With a three-peat in her sights in 2019, Ostrander left no doubt as to her legacy. Ostrander surged into the lead with three laps to go on a warm night in Austin, Texas, put two seconds on the field at the bell and continued pressing forward, winning by nearly nine seconds in 9:37.73.

“I feel like most of the stuff I’ve done in the NCAA is stuff that other people have done and I’m just replicating it — but this one is all mine, and that feels really special,” Ostrander told ESPN reporter Larra Overton after the race at Mike A. Myers Stadium last year.

UCLA’s Boldon Bounced Back With 100 MR

Ato Boldon of UCLA had plenty of time for some sweet revenge as he entered the blocks for the 100-meter final at the 1996 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

A year earlier, Boldon had missed the NCAA 100 final due to a false start in the semifinals that he claims he never committed. Boldon, at the time, was fastest in the nation, and a first- or second-place finish would have given UCLA the team title. He made some amends, winning the NCAA 200 and finishing the summer with a bronze medal in the World Championships 100.

Entering the 1996 NCAA meet, Boldon was again the country’s – and now NCAA’s all-time – fastest at 9.93. After a wind-aided 9.97 semifinal, he rocketed away in the final to 9.92 – just 0.01 off the collegiate record and the first legal sub-10 recorded at historic Hayward Field.

Boldon won by a commanding 0.18 seconds – second-largest margin in meet history – over Kentucky’s Tim Harden. Let it be known that Harden was the man who won the 1995 NCAA title when all Boldon could do was watch from the infield.

A new PR didn’t impress Boldon, who looked forward to competing for his native Trinidad at the Atlanta Olympic Games: “This was an ugly race. Hopefully, if I can have another ugly race on the 27th of July, I’ll have a gold medal.”

Boldon didn’t win Olympic gold – but his bronze medal came in 9.90, an all-dates collegiate best that lasted until 2008. He added another bronze in the 200 and didn’t have to wait too much longer for his global gold: Boldon crossed the finish line first in the 200 at the 1997 World Championships in Athens, Greece.

Let’s Discus(s) Some NCAA Throwing History

Back in 1987, Cliff Felkins of Abilene Christian became the last male athlete in NCAA history to win an NCAA DII and an NCAA DI throwing title in the same year. That’s because, not long after Felkins completed the same-year discus sweep with a heave of 61.00m (200-1) at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, just weeks after winning the NCAA DII crown, Division I officials ruled that it would no longer invite the top finishers from the NCAA DII and NCAA DIII Championships to the NCAA DI meet.

Felkins, who topped the NCAA DII podium once again the following year, helped the Wildcats win back-to-back team titles, two of an NCAA DII-record 19 the program captured before transitioning to the NCAA DI level as part of the Southland Conference in 2013.

Thirty-two years after he doubled up in NCAA laurels, Felkins – now a coach at Texas Tech – sat in the stands at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas, eyes fixated on his prized pupil, Eric “Duke” Kicinski, who prepared to vie for the national title in the same event at the 2019 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

And, like his coach, Kicinski reigned as NCAA DII discus champ – his coming in 2016 when he helped West Texas A&M to a program-best, eighth-place team finish. Kicinski edged Harding’s Josh Syrotchen by just 8 centimeters (3 inches) thanks to his fourth throw of 57.71m (189-4).

Fast forward three years and Kicinski is now a graduate student at Texas Tech. He developed into a top contender for the NCAA DI crown under Felkins and entered the meet as the season’s No. 2 performer on the Descending Order List with a mid-April school record of 63.45m (208-2).

Kicinski had the weight of a red-and-black world on his shoulders that night. The Red Raiders needed at least two points out of him to secure a share of the university athletic department’s first men’s national team title in any sport. If Kicinski matched Felkins as a two-division NCAA champion – or finished in the top-6 – Texas Tech would clinch the outright crown since the most eventual runner-up Florida could tally would be 52 (A win would give the Red Raiders 60 points; a top-6 would be at least 53).

Any nerves Kicinski felt that night didn’t show — not on his first throw and certainly not after Payton Otterdahl of North Dakota State and Kord Ferguson of Alabama pushed him down to third place entering the final three attempts. That’s because Kicinski followed up a first-round mark of 60.73m (199-3) that put him into the initial lead with a 62.53m (205-2) howitzer on his fourth attempt that sliced through the Texas night and eventually gave him the second smallest margin of victory in meet history at 5 cm (2″) over Otterdahl.

All told, Kicinski’s win meant there was something else that he and his coach could share together at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships – a national team title.

“Year Of The Vault” Ends In Epic Duel

Before 2015, there had only been one indoor clearance over 15 feet by a female pole vaulter in collegiate history during the collegiate season (Kaitlin Petrillose of Texas in 2014).

That number increased to 10 after the 2015 indoor campaign.

Before 2015, there had only been three total clearances over 15 feet outdoors by female pole vaulters in collegiate history (Chelsea Johnson of UCLA and Lacy Janson of Florida State each had one in 2006; Tina Sutej of Arkansas did so in 2011).

That number increased to 15 after the 2015 outdoor season.

And, before 2015, there had not been a single clearance over 15 feet at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships by a female pole vaulter.

That number, just like all of the others, jumped exponentially as “The Year of the Vault” ended with an epic duel at Hayward Field between Arkansas’ Sandi Morris and Stephen F. Austin’s Demi Payne, the same two women who took the event to heights it had never been.

After a remarkable indoor season where the duo combined for nine clearance of 15 feet or more, including a still-standing absolute collegiate record of 4.75m (15-7) by Payne and a meet record-tying effort of 4.60m (15-1) by Morris to win the individual title at the NCAA Championships, they turned their attention outdoors and to the four-year-old collegiate best of 4.61m (15-1½) established by Tina Sutej of Arkansas in 2011.

Based on their performances under a roof, it was only a matter of time until Morris and Payne took things to another level. That just so happened to be in mid-April at the John McDonnell Invitational when Morris went 4.62m (15-1¾) for the first of three instances that the outdoor record would change hands between them (It also happened twice in the span of five days when Payne cleared 4.71m (15-5½) at the Southland Conference Championships on May 10 to better her own record of 4.66m (15-3½) from two weeks earlier, then Morris hit 4.72m (15-5¾) at the SEC Outdoor Championships on May 15).

Morris and Payne finally met again at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in mid-June. Collegiate track & field fans expected an incredible battle and that’s exactly what transpired.

They both went through 4.55m (14-11) without a miss: Morris cleared four bars and passed on four others; Payne topped three and passed five. It was just a matter of who would blink first.

Payne continued to pressure Morris with first-attempt clearances on each of the next three bars – 4.60m (15-1), 4.65m (15-3) and 4.70m (15-5). Morris needed two attempts on each of the first two and then passed on her final two attempts at 4.70m to meet Payne at 4.75m (15-7).

Neither woman registered a clean shot to tie Payne’s absolute collegiate record from the indoor season, thus handing Payne the title based on the previous bars – the first podium topped by an SFA athlete in meet history.

Lalang Avenged Loss, Made History

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then breaking a 35-year-old meet record in the process of hand-delivering that delicacy to someone’s own home must be the cherry on top.

Many expected Lawi Lalang’s final year in an Arizona uniform to be all but a coronation as the best collegiate distance runner in recent memory.

After all, Lalang swept the 5000- and 10,000-meter crowns the previous year at the 2013 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships as part of a four-title junior campaign (He also completed the indoor mile-3000 double earlier that year with meet-record times). Then, in just his fourth competition of 2014, Lalang finished runner-up in the Men’s Wanamaker Mile at the NYRR Millrose Games in 3:52.88 and set a since-broken collegiate indoor record by 0.10 seconds.

All signs pointed toward a dominant senior year for Lalang at the NCAA Championships, but his title-winning ways were put on hold – at least until he went back to Hayward Field in June.

Lalang had a tough go at the NCAA Indoor Championships, headlined by a humbling 6.16-second loss to Oregon freshman Edward Cheserek. What made that defeat tougher to swallow was that Cheserek, who would also win the 3000 that year, put all of the distance between himself and Lalang in the final 250 meters to post the second largest margin of victory in meet history.

Fast forward a few months and Lalang toed the starting line alongside Cheserek once again for an NCAA 5000-meter final, but this time it was outdoors on Hayward Field’s hallowed grounds.

Lalang and Cheserek treated the 11,344 fans in attendance to an amazing duel.

The duo pushed the pace early with only Mohammed Ahmed of Wisconsin and 2013 NCAA Indoor 5K champ Kennedy Kithuka of Texas Tech willing to go with them. Then, after a 64-second lap from 3800 meters and 4200 meters dropped Kithuka, a 63-second penultimate circuit of the track shook Ahmed, leaving Lalang and Cheserek alone at the bell – and on historic pace.

True to form, Cheserek made his big move with 250 meters to go – but Lalang had it well-scouted from the indoor meet and wouldn’t let the freshman stray. Lalang pulled even with Cheserek on the homestretch and beat him to the finish line by just 0.35 seconds, the third closest margin of victory at the meet since 1995.

Final result: Lawi Lalang, Arizona – 13:18.36; Edward Cheserek, Oregon – 13:18.71. Both Lalang and Cheserek went under the previous meet best established by Sydney Maree in 1979, but to the victor go the spoils.

Less than 20 hours later, Lalang returned to the track for the final of the 1500 meters. He sought to become the first man in meet history to complete the 1500-5K double, a feat that only one woman — Sheila Reid of Villanova — accomplished three years earlier.

History looked well within Lalang’s reach as he rounded the Bowerman Curve, but Mac Fleet’s fresher legs paid dividends. Fleet edged ahead with 50 meters left in the race and held off Lalang by 0.04 seconds, the second closest margin of victory in the event since 1990.

Lalang capped his collegiate career by being named a finalist for The Bowerman for the second year in a row. And, as if it was almost fate: Who else would share The Bowerman stage with Lalang and eventual winner Deon Lendore of Texas A&M? Edward Cheserek.

Wolcott Hurdled Into NCAA History

Fred Wolcott of Rice said he had never raced for a record – yet he has one that has endured 80 years. 

That record? Wolcott amassed more hurdle wins (five) at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships than any other athlete in meet history. Still, his fifth hurdles crown proved more difficult than anticipated. 

While Wolcott entered the 1940 NCAA Championships in Minneapolis as the favorite to win a third-straight victory in both the 120-yard high hurdles and 220-yard low hurdles, two challenges faced the native of Snyder, Texas (near Abilene). One was an incredible rain storm which moved almost every field event indoors and left the track a muddy mess. The other was a hurdler from Tufts named Ed Dugger. 

First up were the high hurdles, an event in which Wolcott had equaled the world record of 13.7 a month earlier. He led early but was overtaken by Dugger at about halfway and the two fought to the finish in 13.9, Dugger edging to a meet record by two tenths of a second. It was the first collegiate hurdles loss for Wolcott. 

The Owl senior got revenge in the 220 lows, defeating Dugger in 23.1, matching the NCAA meet record set by Jesse Owens in 1936. Better conditions might have allowed Wolcott to lower his own world record of 22.5 that he set two weeks earlier (Wolcott cut 0.1 seconds off the previous mark of 22.6 established by Owens in his famous “Day of Days” at the 1935 Big Ten meet). 

As for his opinion on records, Wolcott explained his preference to Frank Diamond of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “It’s too much fun winning, to worry about smashing records that don’t mean a thing.”

Tarr Family Collects Father-Daughter NCAA Crowns

Sheila Tarr of UNLV was blown away by the reception she got at the 1984 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, and it wasn’t just because she won the heptathlon.

It was mostly due to the meet being held in Eugene, the same site where 22 years earlier, her dad, Jerry Tarr, led Oregon to its first-ever team title with the meet’s only high/intermediate hurdles double victory by a male athlete. The Hayward Field faithful love their Ducks, especially heroes like Jerry.

“I had no idea my father was so popular,” Sheila told Jim Thomas of the San Pedro (Calif.) News-Pilot. “Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, ‘I ran against your father’ or ‘I was on the hurdle crew when your father won an NCAA title.’ This whole week has been a wonderful experience for me.”

Jerry’s 1962 win in the 120-yard hurdles was not a surprise – He was the favorite after winning in 1961 – and his wind-aided 13.5 was the fastest in meet history under all conditions. After finishing he turned around and “seemed to be more excited to see Mel finish second than with his own victory,” according to Dick Leutzinger of the Eugene Register-Guard.

“Mel” was Mel Renfro, a track/football teammate who had also finished third in the long jump by just 1¼” (3 cm). Renfro, whose 14 team points were tied for third-most on a loaded Oregon squad that amassed a near-record 85 points, played 14 years for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.

Jerry Tarr came back in the 440-yard hurdles, a new event for him. “That was easy,” he said after a 52.3 heat win – but legendary coach Bill Bowerman knew better, telling Jerry to adjust his steps from 17 to 15 between hurdles. Tarr responded in the final by running a meet-record 50.3 to win by 1.3 seconds – a margin that would not be surpassed in the event until 1988. “I ran them in 15 steps today – I counted them,” he said afterwards.

No other man has since matched Jerry’s double-hurdle double victory.

And while the heptathlon was a new event for 19-year-old Sheila Tarr, she took to it immediately. Sheila registered 5750 points in her debut in early March and no one else scored more than her during the regular season, sending her to the NCAA Championships as the national leader on an otherwise closely bunched start list.

After a strong first day effort put her up by 43 points in Eugene, Sheila extended that to 62 points by the close of the second day and won with a PR total of 5856 points. That made Sheila the first freshman winner in the event and completed the first father-daughter pair of NCAA champions in meet history.

Jerry watched and cheered Sheila from the stands. “It got to me, it really did,” Jerry told Dave Kayfes of the Eugene Register-Guard, who noted Jerry’s misty eyes. “It was emotional for me, real emotional.”

Sheila was born in dad’s hometown of Bakersfield, California, and the family moved to Las Vegas when Sheila was two-years old. “My father and I were not real close for several years,” she told the Associated Press, noting that her parents had divorced when she was 7. “But he’s been behind me all the way. We’re a lot closer now, and my father helps with my sprinting. As fast as he ran, he had to be doing something right.”

Sheila unfortunately died in 1998 at age 34 from a rare neurological disorder. Her legacy endures as the UNLV track & field facility is named the Myron Partridge Stadium and Sheila Tarr Smith Field (She was the first UNLV athlete to win an NCAA title in any sport). There is also an elementary school in Las Vegas named after her.

O’Brien Glides To Shot Put Dominance

Parry O’Brien was a shot put pioneer.

By the time O’Brien competed for Southern California a final time in the shot put at the 1953 NCAA Outdoor Championships, he was an Olympic gold medalist, two-time world record setter and owner of a technique he used to dominate his competition.

It was called the “O’Brien Glide.”

O’Brien developed the style as a sophomore in 1951 and perfected it in 1952, winning the first of two-straight NCAA titles, each by more than two feet and with at least one meet record (ultimately to 58-7¼ or 17.86m  – just shy of his then-world record 59-2¼ or 18.04m). Finishing second both times was Texas A&M’s Darrow Hooper, who had defeated O’Brien for the 1951 NCAA title by one inch.

About a month before that 1951 NCAA meet, O’Brien began experimenting on his new technique – at 3 o’clock in the morning … by street lights … on a vacant lot next to his home in Santa Monica, California. Back then, the standard method was for the athlete to stand at the rear of the ring, hop forward, turn 90 degrees and propel the 16-pound iron ball forward. O’Brien’s variation had him facing the back of the circle, then turning 180 degrees and using the spin to generate momentum.

“It’s an application of physics, which says that the longer you apply pressure or force to an inanimate object, the farther it will go,” O’Brien told Time magazine when he graced the cover on December 3, 1956. “My style is geared to allow me to apply force for the longest time before releasing the shot.”

O’Brien compiled an incredible 116-meet win streak from the 1952-56 – then the longest in the world for any event. Ironically, the streak was broken by Manhattan’s Ken Bantum a week after Bantum bettered O’Brien’s NCAA meet record with the meet’s first 60-foot effort in June 1956.

O’Brien would set a total of 16 world records and won a second Olympic gold in 1956. He earned silver in 1960 and finished fourth in 1964, when he was selected to carry the American flag in the opening ceremony.

LSU’s Echols Set Lofty Long Jump Record

The most intriguing aspect about Sheila Echols setting the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships meet record in the long jump might not be that her leap of 6.94m (22-9¼) has remarkably endured 33 years since 1987.

Interestingly, Echols’ jumps at the NCAA Championships were her first legal marks of the outdoor season. After winning the NCAA Indoor title in March, Echols’ season took a detour in her first outdoor competition in April, fouling three times and injuring her quad in the process. Fortunately the injury wasn’t season-ending, as she was able to continue sprinting.

Echols’ participation in the 1987 NCAA Championships was crucial to LSU, which aimed for is first outdoor team crown and hosted the meet at a newly-renovated Bernie Moore Track Stadium. Her first effort of 6.58m (21-7¼) ended up being far enough to win – but went much farther in Round 4 with her record – a PR by 24 centimeters (9½”).

The effort was – and still is – third on the all-time collegiate list, as only Jackie Joyner of UCLA (6.99m/22-11¼) and Carol Lewis of Houston (6.97m/22-10½) have gone farther.

Meanwhile, Echols continued earning points for the Lady Tigers, finishing third in the 100 (behind future Olympic gold medalists Gwen Torrence of Georgia and Gail Devers of UCLA) and leading off the second-place 4×100 relay team. Echols ended up with a team-high 18 points as LSU won its first outdoor women’s team title. LSU, of course, would win many more, and their 11-year streak of victories (1987-97) is the longest in meet history, men or women.

A year later, Echols ran the second leg on the U.S. 4×100 relay team that beat East Germany for gold at the Seoul Olympic Games.

Livers’ Three Titles Made Triple Jump History

“Rhythm is the art form in the triple. There’s no other event like it. Those three bounces are a thing of beauty. The art form of the event and raising the consciousness of the spectators come first; winning comes second.”

Fans in attendance at the 1977 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Champaign, Illinois, were at a fevered pitch as the triple jump competition got underway. That’s because it was billed to be a colossal clash between three men who had shown the ability to rewrite the record book at a moment’s notice: Willie Banks of UCLA, Charlton Ehizuelen of hometown Illinois and Ron Livers of San Jose State.

Banks had set the collegiate record to 16.84m (55-3¼) earlier in the season and beat Livers in head-to-head competition three times in the previous month, which put him in a great position.

Ehizuelen owned the adoration of the local fans and also brandished record-breaking power at two previous editions of the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He established NCAA meet records in winning the 1974 triple jump (16.66m/54-8) and 1975 long jump (8.20m/26-11) and entered this year’s competition fresh off a runner-up finish in the long jump.

Livers was no slouch, having won the 1975 NCAA triple jump crown with a wind-aided 16.80m (55-1¾) – farthest in meet history under all conditions. The Spartan standout – who once famously owned the world’s greatest height-over-head differential in the high jump (He only stood 1.73m (5-7), but had cleared 2.24m (7-4¼) for a difference of 51 cm (21¼”)) – redshirted in 1976 and wanted to take back the throne.

The fireworks began in Round 2 when Ehizuelen spanned a near-meet record of 16.71m (54-10), which Livers promptly matched. Then in Round 3, Livers took the lead with a new meet record at 16.75m (54-11½) – but on the very next jump, Banks took over with a collegiate record and meet record of 16.85m (55-3½). Banks, bothered by a leg issue, passed his next two attempts, while Ehizuelen had a pair of fouls. In Round 5, Livers bounded a new CR of 16.86m (55-3¾) to squeeze back into the lead, which neither Banks nor Ehizuelen could match. Livers finished with a 16.77m (55-0¼), making him the first collegian with multiple 55-footers in the same meet.

“I was glad to get the record,” said Livers, a native of Norristown, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia). “I’ve been chasing it a long time.”

Livers and Banks returned for another duel at the 1978 NCAA Outdoor Championships, held at Historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Just a month earlier, Banks had taken back the CR at 17.05m (55-11¼) – but he wouldn’t leave the Beaver State with it still in his possession.

Not one to delay, Livers opened up with a 16.94m (55-7) effort in Round 1 to improve his meet record. Banks, who only mustered a 16.84m (55-3) mark in Round 5, sat idle as Livers showed a great deal of consistency with three more 55-footers, before unleashing a massive 17.15m (56-3¼) on his final attempt to snatch the collegiate record.

Livers, who did all of what he did at Hayward Field while nursing a sore back, became the first man to win three career triple jump titles in meet history. He is still one of just three men to accomplish that feat.

“Rhythm is the art form in the triple,” Livers told Neil Amdur of the New York Times. “There’s no other event like it. Those three bounces are a thing of beauty. The art form of the event and raising the consciousness of the spectators come first; winning comes second.”

Huber Three-Peats In 3000 Meters

While Vicki Huber’s prime event is no longer part of the program at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the rich tradition of middle distance runners at Villanova is not complete without her. After all, she has more NCAA titles than any other Wildcat, including the storied men’s program.

Six of Huber’s seven individual NCAA track titles came in the 3000 meters, an event she conquered like no other collegiate woman. Huber swept NCAA indoor/outdoor titles three times from 1987-89, setting some records and winning margins that will likely remain – at least outdoors since the event was discontinued in 2001 when the women’s steeplechase was introduced.

Huber became a major force as a sophomore, winning the 3000 at the 1987 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in a collegiate record of 8:54.41. It was a PR by more than 12 seconds from when she won her first national title a few months earlier in the indoor version (Huber clocked a 9:06.45).

Virtually untouchable in 1988, Huber completed the first women’s indoor mile/3000 double at the NCAA Championships as she broke and then bettered the meet record in the mile to 4:31.46. That mark, however, was shy of the collegiate record 4:28.31 she clocked earlier that year at the Millrose Games and would stand for 21 years until Colorado’s Jenny Barringer ran the current record of 4:25.91 in 2009 (Barringer was the inaugural winner of The Bowerman).

Outdoors in 1988, Huber lowered the 3000 CR twice, first to 8:53.07 (in an early-April race she won by more than 30 seconds) and then a dominating 8:47.35 NCAA victory by almost 12 seconds. Then in September, Huber was sixth in the Seoul Olympics at 8:37.25 – still the all-time best by a collegian regardless of time of year.

Huber – who grew up some 15 miles from the Villanova campus in Wilmington, Delaware – finished her collegiate track career with a 9:06.96 win at the 1989 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships. The time was not fast, thanks to being held at high altitude in Provo, Utah, but she was an incredible 20.30 seconds ahead of her nearest pursuer in a margin of victory that will forever remain as the meet’s largest.

The chance to leave her mark in cross country beckoned Huber back to Villanova in the fall of 1989 and she might have saved her best for last. Huber won the individual title at the 1989 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships by a still-standing meet record of 26.92 seconds and led the Wildcats to their first NCAA women’s team title in any sport.

ACU’s Morrow Doubled Twice, Set WRs

Bobby Morrow of Abilene Christian had a simple answer after running a world record in the heats of the 1957 NCAA Championships.

“I had to win it,” Morrow explained. “If you win you get that choice middle lane for the finals.”

A triple Olympic gold medalist the previous fall, Morrow was placed in the same NCAA 100-yard heat as Western Michigan’s Ira Murchison, a fellow Olympic relay gold medalist, as well as superb starter (some called him the “Human Sputnik”). Most race accounts have Murchison blasting to an immediate lead that he held until about 80 yards, at which point Morrow rocketed past to victory in 9.3, equal to the world record and a new meet record*. Murchison, who felt Morrow did not pass him until the last 5 yards, was also clocked in 9.3.

“Murch got out on me – he always does,” Morrow told the press afterwards. “Of course, if he hadn’t gotten that start on me I might have relaxed and done no good at all.”

Morrow won the NCAA final in 9.4 (overcoming another great start by Murchison), then completed his second-straight NCAA sprint double by winning the 220 in 21.0.

His first NCAA sprint double also featured a world record – this time at 200 meters, as he won easily and tied the world record of 20.6 (He would end the 1956 season with three such times as WRs). However, his 100 victory captured more attention, avenging a loss at the Drake Relays to Duke’s Dave Sime that ended Morrow’s 31-race winning streak.

Morrow – a native of San Benito, Texas (near Brownsville at the southern tip of Texas) – was Abilene Christian’s first NCAA champion in any sport, but he didn’t arrive on the NCAA scene unannounced. As a freshman in 1955, he collected the first of three 100-200 doubles at the NAIA Championships, winning the century in a wind-aided 9.1 – equal to the fastest-ever recorded at the time, under any conditions.

Morrow passed away on May 30 at age 84.

*The race broke a significant logjam of legends having a share of the oldest meet record then on the books – 9.4 set in 1929 by George Simpson and equaled by Frank Wykoff (1930), Ralph Metcalfe (1933) and Jesse Owens (1936), all WRs at the time by stars already who’ve been featured in our series of great NCAA moments. That 9.4 MR was untouched until Morrow’s 9.3 in 1957.

Williams Blazed Trail For Black Throwers

George Williams made history when he won the javelin title at the 1932 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Chicago, Illinois.

Williams, who competed for Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), became the first Black athlete to capture an NCAA crown in a throwing event thanks to his heave of 215-0. Not only did the Hampton senior PR by nearly 10 feet, but he also won by more than 10 feet – and tied what was the third-best mark in meet history at the time.

After not scoring at the 1931 NCAA Championships, Williams entered the 1932 edition of the meet as the favorite and proved his mettle. He was undefeated during the regular season and won the individual title at the Penn Relays with the Carnival’s first 200-foot throw at 205-2.

Today, Williams remains one of just five Black athletes who have won javelin titles in the near 100-year history of the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships: Anderson Peters (2018-19) and Curtis Thompson (2016), both of Mississippi State, are the only other men; LSU’s Lavern Eve (1987) and Rice’s Valerie Tulloch (1992, 1994-95) blazed the trail for the women.

Williams, who finished fifth at the 1932 U.S. Olympic Trials, became well-known later in life for his work at the Agricultural Extension Service of Greensville County in Virginia, where he started a clinic for combating tuberculosis.

Falcon Flew To NCAA Distance Glory

Like his surname, Joe Falcon always swooped in at the right moment.

Known for his ferocious kick late in the race, Falcon captured seven individual NCAA titles between cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field while competing for the University of Arkansas under legendary USTFCCCA Hall of Fame coach John McDonnell.

Falcon’s winning ways nearly started in the fall of his sophomore year at the 1986 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Tucson, Arizona, but a recessed sprinkler head had other ideas. The Razorback standout ran on the shoulder of eventual winner Aaron Ramirez for most of the race before pulling away as they ascended the final hill. Shortly after, Falcon stepped in a sprinkler hole on the golf course, tumbled to the ground and had to settle for a runner-up finish (Don’t worry: Falcon atoned for that mishap the following year to become the program’s first individual national champion in cross country).

That incident most likely fueled Falcon’s fire over the next few years as little kept him from NCAA glory from that point forward.

After winning his first NCAA title the following March in the indoor 3000 meters, Falcon closed in a scintillating 55.1 to capture the 10,000-meter crown at the 1987 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. That would be the first of seven 10K crowns for the Razorbacks over the years, which has helped them become the highest-scoring program in that event in meet history.

Falcon went back-to-back in the indoor 3000 the following year and added the mile crown to his ledger for good measure. When he returned to the outdoor meet a few months later, Falcon had his eyes squarely set on the 1500-meter title, something only one other man in program history was able to bring back to Fayetteville (Frank O’Mara in 1983).

True to form, Falcon stayed right behind the leader (Steve Balkey of Penn State) and blew past him in the final 500 meters. Falcon had company, though, as the Indiana duo of Mark Deady and Charles Marsala went with him. The Razorback runner held off the Hoosiers’ harriers to win by one second, 3:38.91 to 3:39.91 (Marsala) and 3:39.92 (Deady).

To this day, Falcon remains the only man in meet history to win national titles in both the 1500/mile and the 10,000 meters — and is just one of two men to score in both of those events at the national meet in his career (Two-time The Bowerman finalist Lawi Lalang is the other, winning the 10K title in 2013 and finishing runner-up in the 1500 one year later).

Falcon snagged another NCAA indoor mile crown in 1989 and anchored the Arkansas DMR team to an all-time world best in the DMR at the Penn Relays that same year. However, Falcon’s quest to defend his 1500-meter crown fell 1200 meters short in June after he was tripped and pushed to the ground less than one lap into the NCAA final, in what would be his final collegiate race.

Kyra Jefferson Chomps Collegiate Record

Fast runs in Kyra Jefferson’s family.

Thomas Jefferson, her biological father, earned an Olympic bronze medal in the 200 meters as part of a historic 1-2-3 sweep by Team USA at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Michele Watkins (nee Morris), her mother, was the first woman in NCAA DI history to anchor the title-winning 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams at the same NCAA Championships meet, doing so as a member of the 1985 LSU team that jump-started the program’s dynasty.

Kyra matched her mother’s relay prowess exactly 30 years later in 2015, albeit not in the same, exact way. She anchored Florida’s first – and still, only – women’s 4×100 relay win at the NCAA meet and then doubled back to carry the baton second on its championship 4×400 relay squad.

Fast forward two years and Kyra stood alone in history at the conclusion of the 2017 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field. That’s because Kyra won her second career 200-meter national title in a meet- and collegiate record-setting time of 22.02, taking down the 28-year-old standards of 22.04 established by Dawn Sowell in 1989 (Sowell clocked that mark at altitude in Provo, Utah).

Even though Kyra already had one 200-meter national title to her credit from the 2015 indoor season, very few expected her to win as a senior. She entered the meet as the fourth best performer of the season at 22.43, 0.34 seconds slower than Deajah Stevens of Oregon, who ran 22.09 at the Pac-12 Outdoor Championships in mid-May for what was the second fastest mark in collegiate history at the time and was an Olympic finalist the previous year. Also in the NCAA final was defending champion Ariana Washington of Oregon, who became the first freshman to complete the 100-200 double in meet history the year before.

Once the race started, though, it was clear that either Deajah or Kyra would win. Everybody else would likely be competing for third. Deajah and Kyra ran stride-for-stride down the backstretch and pushed the pace even harder as the finish line neared (Meet officials flipped the track so the competitors would have the 1.1 m/s wind at their back). The only remaining logical question was, “How fast would they go?”

Then, with less than 10 meters left, Kyra pulled slightly ahead of Deajah. The former Duck, who had begun to lose her form about 10 meters earlier, caught an edge and crashed to the track. Kyra avoided her fallen rival and crossed the finish line in 22.02 with a yell and exuberant fist pump.

“I didn’t know what happened,” Jefferson told ESPN reporter Jill Montgomery after the race. “I was just focusing on the finish line. I saw her in my peripherals and I was just trying to make sure I just kept digging and just trusted myself and trusted in God to get me through this race.”

Florida State’s Dix Ruled NCAA Outdoor Meet

Walter Dix of Florida State ended his illustrious career at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships by matching one legend and blazing his own trail as the highest-scoring male sprinter in meet history.

Dix was an immediate star for the Seminoles, winning the 100 as a freshman in 2005 – then just the fifth freshman man to do so. That came after Dix clocked an American U20 record of 10.06 at the NCAA East Regional and just a few months after the native of Coral Springs, Florida, was the NCAA runner-up in the indoor 200 with the still-standing world U20 record of 20.37.

He ascended to legendary status between 2006 and 2008 when he was FSU’s leading point scorer each year that the squad won back-to-back-to-back national titles (The Seminoles’ 2007 title was later vacated). Each of those three crowns had Dix’s signature on them.

In 2006, Dix followed up his 100-meter title in 2005 with a 200-meter crown that gave him an indoor/outdoor sweep and added 10 points to the Seminoles’ largest margin of victory as a team during that span (16 points).

His final two years were monstrous.

In 2007, Dix completed a second-straight sweep of indoor/outdoor 200s (the only man to do that double twice) and became the only man since San Jose State’s John Carlos in 1969 to sweep outdoor titles in the 100, 200 and as part of the 4×100 relay. His 100 win in 9.93 was just 0.01 seconds off the collegiate record, at the time, while two weeks before his 200 win, he set the still-standing CR of 19.69 at the East Regional.

Many athletes with such world-class credentials would likely turn pro — and even FSU head coach Bob Braman didn’t know which way Dix would decide. “If he’s back, we’ll let him do what he wants to do,” Braman told Bret Bloomquist for Track & Field News. “He’s done his part for the team for three years. Next year would be about him.”

Fortunately for Seminole fans, Dix returned for a final season in 2008.

A third-straight victory in the 200 was the closest of all of his three NCAA Outdoor half-lap titles (by just 0.04 seconds), yet it put his name alongside Marquette’s Ralph Metcalfe as the only men to win that event three times (Metcalfe accomplished that feat from 1932 to 1934). It also gave Dix career-high sprint totals of seven combined NCAA indoor/outdoor individual wins (eight, including relays) – amounts that could have been even higher, but Dix missed the 2008 NCAA Indoor meet due to strep throat.

Somewhat symbolically, on the fourth-place 4×100 relay team in 2008, Dix led off and handed the baton to future FSU star Ngoni Makusha, who was just a freshman. Makusha certainly had his own legacy, winning The Bowerman in 2011 after breaking the collegiate record in the 100 and completing the 100-long jump sweep at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

One of the best tributes to Dix came from a competitor, Richard Thompson of LSU, after he beat the defending champion in the 100-meter final at the 2008 meet as a senior: “I remember as a freshman thinking, ‘Walter Dix is going to be around for four years,’ and wondering, ‘When am I ever going to win an NCAA championship?’”

Later that summer, Dix earned a pair of Olympic bronze medals in Beijing in both the 100 and 200. Then, three years later, Dix achieved his best international success with a pair of silver medals in those events at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea.

Mosqueda’s 10K Record Caps Incredible Year

November 21, 1987 

Sylvia Mosqueda of Cal State Los Angeles won the individual title at the 1987 NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships in Evansville, Indiana, by 24 seconds in 16:57. That remained the largest margin of victory in meet history until seven years later.

May 1, 1988 

Sylvia Mosqueda set a blistering pace at the U.S. Women’s Olympic Marathon Trial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She opened up a 1½-minute advantage through five miles and continued to lead through 17 miles before dropping out not long after. It was noted by Christine Brennan in the Washington Post that “(Eventual winner) Margaret Groos and the others completely lost sight of Mosqueda along some stretches of the hilly, tree-lined course.” (Mosqueda was pulled out of the race by her coach after noticing her toes had ripped through her shoes, which rubbed her feet so raw that her socks filled with blood.)

June 1, 1988 

Sylvia Mosqueda, still just days after recovering from a two-week battle against chicken pox and the flu, dominated the 10,000-meter final at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. She took the lead with 21 laps to go and pushed the tempo on her way to a 16-second win, as well as the collegiate record and meet record of 32:28.57.

“The night before the race, my coach (Gudrun Armanski) took me out to the track and told me, ‘You can be champion, if you want,’” Mosqueda recalled to the USTFCCCA earlier this month. “I don’t know if I truly believed him, but I trusted my training. Our game plan was to run the first mile in 5:10 and then do whatever I wanted to from that point on.”

“I wish somebody would have recorded it on video. Now that I’m 54-years old, that race has always stood out in my mind. I can close my eyes and envision the entire 10,000 — just as it was. I would love to know if it looked that way to everybody else, too.”

Mosqueda, who enters her second year as head coach of the cross country and track & field programs at Pepperdine University in 2020, saw her records last for quite a few years.

The collegiate record of 32:28.57 held strong until 1994 when Carole Zajac of Villanova went 32:22.97 at the Penn Relays, while her all-time best at the NCAA final site remained atop the chart for 24 more years after that.

Back in 2018, Sharon Lokedi of Kansas led a squadron of sub-32:30 women at Hayward Field. Lokedi won the NCAA title in a 32:09.20 MR and five other women dipped under Mosqueda’s mark as well: Dorcas Wasike of Louisville – 32:11.81; Karissa Schweizer of Missouri – 32:14.94; Alice Wright of New Mexico – 32:17.92; Charlotte Taylor of San Francisco – 32:17.95; Anna Rohrer of Notre Dame – 32:26.24.