University of Tennessee Athletics
TROTTER RACES TO LADY VOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK HONORS
February 03, 2004 | Women's Track
Feb. 3, 2004
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
Dee Dee Trotter, a junior on the University of Tennessee women's track & field team, was chosen Lady Vol Athlete of the Week Wednesday in a vote by the UT Media Relations staff.
A junior from Decatur, Ga., Trotter had a sensational weekend for the fifth-ranked UT women at the Penn State National Open in University Park, Pa. With an excellent start and strong race overall, the three-time All-American rocketed to the fastest 200-meter dash clocking in the world this season, winning in 23.19 to eclipse the school record and the facility standard at PSU's Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track.
In that Saturday matinee race in front of a packed house, Trotter toppled Sue Walton's 23.23 UT mark from 1995 and beat Nike's Rachelle Boone to the finish line to break the 23.44 facility record of the former Indiana All-American. Additionally, the UT sprint star earned herself an automatic ticket to the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on March 12-14, her third-consecutive trip to the national indoor gathering in that event.
If that wasn't enough, Trotter also charted a career-best 60-meter dash time of 7.49 and ran a remarkable 400-meter leg on Tennessee's distance medley relay. That quartet charted the best time in the collegiate ranks in 2004 at 11:03.42, broke the old school record of 11:18.58 from 1987 and earned an automatic NCAA bid. It also rewrote the Ashenfelter track record, which had previously been 11:15.92 by West Virginia in 2000.
Trotter is the second member of the track & field team to earn Lady Vol Athlete of the Week recognition in the past two voting periods. Fellow junior Nicole Cook (Petersburg, Va.) shared the honor with basketball's Shyra Ely last week.
