University of Tennessee Athletics
Dickie Prepares for NCAA Cross Country Championships
November 15, 2000 | Women's Cross Country
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Nov. 15, 2000) -- Sharon Dickie, a sophomore on the University of Tennessee cross country team, will compete at the 2000 NCAA Women's Cross Country Championship on November 20 in Ames, Iowa. The meet, hosted by Iowa State University, will be a 6,000-meter race at the ISU Cross Country Course.
To qualify for the national championship, Dickie won the NCAA South Regional in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Nov. 11 with a time of 20:38.79 on the 6K course at the University of Alabama. With that win, Dickie earned South Region Athlete of the Year honors and picked up the second All-Region accolades of her career. Prior to the regional meet, Dickie earned the an All-Southeastern Conference nod by finishing third at the SEC Championships behind a pair of runners from Arkansas who are favorites to contend for the NCAA Championship.
Dickie, a native of Grand Blanc, Mich., is having a successful season in 2000 after sitting out the entire 1999-2000 cross country and track seasons with a hip injury. During her freshman season in 1998, she earned All-SEC and All-Region honors while helping the Lady Vols to an appearance at the NCAA Championships, where she led the team with a 74th-place finish.
"Making nationals is a goal that Sharon set her sights on from the beginning of the season," first-year cross country coach Rodney Rothoff said. "Now, she has reached her goals to make it to nationals and put herself in the position to compete. She has to make the decision to be either a participant or a competitor. Being the competitor that she is, I feel that she has a chance to be an All-American. No matter what happens at NCAAs, though, Sharon has still reached a new level in her running and that has been possible because of her attitude and desire to fight through adversity (not competing for a year)."
If Dickie were to achieve All-America status, which is awarded to the top 15 runners at the NCAA Championships, she would be just the ninth All-American ever in women's cross country from the University of Tennessee. The last runners to earn that honor in cross country for UT were Patty Wiegand, Jasmin Jones and Valerie Bertrand in the 1989 NCAA Championships in Annapolis, Md.
