University of Tennessee Athletics
2005 SEASON IN REVIEW
June 30, 2005 | Women's Track
June 30, 2005
The four most popular factors used to measure the value of a diamond are commonly known as the "4Cs" - cut, color, carat and clarity. Likewise, University of Tennessee Head Women's Coach J.J. Clark uses four "Cs" of his own to evaluate the quality of his track & field team. Gauging by the 2005 Lady Volunteers' classroom performance, championships won, community involvement and commitment to excellence, it is evident the UT program is sparkling more brilliantly than it has in years. And, in comparison to their peers, the Big Orange women rate "A Cut Above."
The shining examples are virtually endless. There were NCAA and Southeastern Conference Indoor titles and an NCAA Mideast Regional title outdoors in 2005. Individual NCAA championships were won by sophomore Tianna Madison in the long jump, and USA Track & Field Junior crowns were claimed by rookies Cleo Tyson (100m/200m) and Shanna Dickenson (discus). And, there were number-one national rankings, world-leading marks and school records to boot. Plainly stated, there were gems everywhere you looked.
The season of brilliance began at home on Jan. 7, as the Lady Vols, ranked No. 1 for the first time by Trackwire, hosted the Tennessee All-Comers Meet at Stokely Athletics Center. Tyson debuted in impressive fashion by winning the 55-meter dash, defeating 2004 NCAA Indoor short sprint runner-up Toyin Olupona and Olympic gold medallist Dee Dee Trotter. Olupona, rookie Courtney Champion and Madison all joined Tyson in registering NCAA provisional qualifying marks to confirm predictions that a strong sprint corps was being developed in Knoxville.
The Lady Volunteers revealed their diversity of talent the following weekend, on Jan. 14-15, as they flexed more than sprint muscles and charted victories in the pole vault, shot put and 800 meters at the Virginia Tech Invitational. Senior Nicole Cook, the national and league indoor champ in 2004, hit the NCAA automatic mark in the 800m with a 2:04.30 reading that earned her SEC Track Runner of the Week accolades. In addition to wins in the vault and shot by senior Jessica Andrews and junior April Thomas, respectively, Madison landed a then-career-best leap of 20 feet, 8 ½ inches in the long jump to take second but, more importantly, card a very strong provisional measurement for the NCAA Championships.
Madison strengthened her case for national meet consideration two weeks later at the Penn State Invitational, on Jan. 28-29, soaring to 20-10 ¾ to triumph and notch the number-two mark in UT history. The second-year performer wasn't done there, as she helped the Lady Vols achieve a sweep of places one through four in the 60-meter dash. Tyson's 7.36 readout was good for her second short sprint title of the season, while Madison, freshman LaTonya Loche and classmate Champion followed right behind her, all with NCAA provisionals. Tennessee's 4x400m relay, re-tracing the triumphant footsteps of the distance medley contingent on Friday, put a fine capper on the weekend, snagging first in 3:34.38 to hit the provisional plateau on day two.
After falling in the Trackwire national poll to third, the Big Orange women took their act to Fayetteville, Ark., on Feb. 12 for the Powered by Tyson Invitational. The meet, which offered both a chance to run against national-caliber competition as well as preview the site of the NCAA Indoor Championships, brought out the best in the Lady Vols. Madison became the second from UT to book her ticket to the national meet, jumping 21-11 ½ to win and log the number-two distance in the world at that point in the season. That performance gained her U.S. Track Coaches Association and SEC Athlete of the Week accolades.
Tennessee's DMR and 4x4 units also made moves to secure NCAA berths in victorious outings. The 4x4 closed out the meet with a sensational run of 3:33.82 that was just off the automatic standard and rated number three all-time in school history. The DMR, meanwhile, put together its best effort in 2005 and the fourth fastest in UT annals at 11:17.28. Tyson also shined in the sprints, charting Lady Vol freshman records in the 60 and 200 meters at 7.33 and 23.68, respectively.
With one final home meet remaining before the "championship season," Coach Clark's fourth-ranked charges took full advantage of the Tennessee Indoor Classic on Feb. 18 to sharpen themselves for the SEC Indoor meet. Among the UT highlights were junior Jessica Reust's Stokely Athletics Center record of 12-11 ½ in the pole vault and Olupona's school- and facility-record-matching 6.74 in the 55 meters. Madison gave Tennessee two automatic sprint qualifiers for the NCAA Championships, taking second in the 55m at 6.75, just shy of the historical standards that Olupona achieved.
With that springboard of success, the Lady Vols launched into the SEC Indoor Championships on Feb. 25-27, and what a splash they made. Overcoming a 14 ½-point deficit to home-standing Arkansas entering the final day of competition, the Big Orange turned the tables on the Lady Razorbacks and outscored the hosts for the meet, 135 ½ to 120, to stand atop the team standings at the league indoor gathering for the first time in 21 years.
Cook played a huge role in Tennessee's triumph, breaking an 11-year-old collegiate record in the 800m with a victorious 2:00.75 readout to garner 10 points. Additionally, her mark erased previous conference, facility and school records in the process and stood up as the top indoor reading by an American and the eighth-best in the world in 2005. Junior Felicia Guliford also came through in the clutch, delivering the Orange and White 20 points with victories in both the 3000 and 5000 meters. That showing earned Guliford a tie with Florida's Candice Scott for SEC Commissioner's Trophy honors, which go to the meet's high-point producer.
Nearly lost in the wake of Cook's fantastic race was Madison's school-record-setting hop to take the title in the long jump. The Elyria, Ohio, product sailed to 22-0 ¼, netting not only the best UT reading ever but also the best by an American at that stage in the season. Additionally, she became only the sixth American woman in history to meet the 22-foot plateau indoors.
Madison was also part of a 23-point orange-clad explosion in the 60-meter dash, as Champion, Tyson, Madison and Olupona monopolized places second through fifth and helped turn the momentum in Tennessee's favor. Arkansas drew a brief second wind after scoring heavily in the 5000 meters, but the Big Orange DMR, with junior Brooke Novak anchoring, beat the Lady'Backs head to head and took top honors. Then, sophomore Edra Finley put the meet firmly in the Lady Vols' corner with a career-best, third-place outcome in the triple jump.
"I said at the beginning of the weekend that we were trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and make a pretty picture," Clark said. "That is exactly what we did."
With its number-one national ranking restored after the stellar SEC showing, Clark's group moved on to its next challenge, the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 11-12. Madison, in UT's first event of the meet, got the squad from Rocky Top off to a flying start, soaring to a school-best 22-3 to snare the first indoor long jump national title in program history. That measurement tied former University of Houston star Carol Lewis for the fourth-best leap ever registered at NCAA Indoors.
Champion, Tyson and Loche got into the act later in the day, notching finishes of third, seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 200 meters to chip in a collective nine points. The DMR quartet of Novak, Hall, senior Antoinette Gorham and Guliford tossed another deuce into the hopper with a seventh-place outcome and sent Tennessee into the second and final day with a two-point lead, 21-19, over Texas.
With only a pair of events left in which to generate points, combined with the preliminary round departure of national 800m leader Cook due to a pre-existing right hamstring injury, the prospects for a national championship did not look good for Team Orange on Saturday. Yet, Clark could somehow still see his squad finding a way to win the meet.
"I told the team we had two events, and that we somehow needed to come up with 20 points to add to the 21 we got Friday," Clark said. "We had the 60-meter dash and the 4x4, and the goal was 20 points."
The third-year skipper's belief in his squad was met with a can-do attitude, and the pieces to another beautiful puzzle started to fall into place. First, Olupona, Madison and Champion, filling the Tyson Center's straightaway with orange, glided to second, third and sixth positions, respectively, in the 60-meter dash, racking up a whopping 17 points and bringing the dream of a title into the realm of possibilities. In leading that charge, Olupona carded her second consecutive runner-up result in the NCAA short sprint and gave the USTCA another reason to name UT aide Caryl Smith Gilbert as its National and Mideast Region Assistant Coach of the Year for Sprints/Hurdles.
Then, with the Big Orange clinging to a six-point lead over second-place Florida entering the meet's final event, UT's 4x4 delivered the clinching blow. A season-best clocking of 3:31.76, just off the school record, generated eight points and sent the orange-clad contingent into a jubilant, Rocky Top-fueled celebration over the track & field program's first-ever NCAA title.
"This was our goal, and we knew it was attainable," Clark said. "The media thought so, too, because they ranked us number one at the beginning of the season and coming into this meet. But, it is very hard to carry that ranking through the season and then end it with a championship. Very few teams do that. It just shows a lot of character on the part of our team in being able to win this after losing Nicole Cook to injury."
The awards came flooding in after the championship, as Clark was named USTCA National, USTCA South Region and SEC Indoor Coach of the Year, and Cook earned acclaim as USTCA South Region Athlete of the Year. Additionally, Madison was selected as Sports Illustrated On Campus Indoor Track "Player" of the Year as well as SEC Indoor Field Event Athlete of the Year, and Champion collected SEC Freshman Runner of the Year acclaim.
With all the adulation and awards being heaped upon them, the Lady Vols had to somehow refocus two weeks later and launch into the outdoor portion of their schedule. Amazingly, Trackwire's outdoor preseason number-one squad was able to do so at the Coca-Cola Relays in Gainesville, Fla., on March 24-26, as it laid claim to a pair of school records and one facility mark before thunderstorms abruptly curtailed the meet prior to its conclusion.
Most impressively, the 4x200m relay combination of Madison, Champion, Loche and Tyson scorched the Percy Beard Track for a 1:31.83 display, toppling both the UT and stadium standards in the process. Junior Ariel Brooks added a school best as well, stretching the tape to 180-2 in the hammer throw.
Two weeks later, on April 8-9, Tennessee would make its outdoor home debut at Tom Black Track in the Gatorade Classic. In a uniquely-scored event, the Lady Vols joined SEC schools Kentucky and South Carolina in defeating the Big Ten triumvirate of Minnesota, Penn State and Wisconsin, 379-310, in a league vs. league battle.
In a weekend where nine Big Orange individuals and the 4x400m relay qualified for the NCAA Mideast Regional with their performances, Madison was once again the headliner as well as the SEC Athlete of the Week. The sophomore long jump phenom, on her very first attempt of the outdoor campaign, unleashed a leap of 22-4 ½ that would stand as the best wind-legal NCAA measurement by a woman all season long. Additionally, it supplanted the 22-0 ¾ UT mark of Dedra Davis and ascended to the number one spot in the Gatorade Classic record book. Also adding victories were Novak in the 1500 meters, Reust in the pole vault, Thomas in the shot put and Gorham in the 800 meters, while Brooks upped her school record in the hammer to 182-10.
For the second weekend in a row, Tom Black Track was the site of a home meet, this time the Sea Ray Relays on April 13-16. While Madison would defeat 2004 Olympian Grace Upshaw and claim the Tony Wilson Memorial Award for Field Events, and Brooks improved the UT hammer throw record to 189-3, it was Olupona who turned heads with her pair of victories in the 100-meter dash. After winning the open division title on Friday in a career-best 11.47, the senior dipped to 11.40 on Saturday to seize the invitational crown against an elite cast of competitors.
After dropping from third to fourth in the rankings, Tennessee once again faced high-caliber opposition two weeks later, as Clark and company made their way to Philadelphia, Pa., for the 111th running of the Penn Relays on April 27-30. Coming off a 2004 meet in which UT won three relay events and forged a collegiate record in the sprint medley, expectations were high. The 2005 squad found those accomplishments difficult to match, as a second-place, school-record-setting effort of 43.58 in the 4x100m relay turned out to be the top showing of the weekend. The 4x1 runner-up production of Madison, Champion, Olupona and Tyson was matched by the sprint medley unit, but that group was disqualified for exchange zone violations.
Returning to Knoxville after the Penn Relays, the Lady Vols faced one more tune-up meet prior to the SEC Championships. It proved to be a small, but successful, event, as Champion logged NCAA regional marks in the 100 and 200 meters to set the tone. In all, six UT women finished first in their respective events, and eight marks were worthy of regional qualification.
Primed for the championship portion of its outdoor itinerary, the Orange and White headed west on I-40 to the SEC Outdoor meet in Nashville on May 12-15. While Tennessee came up short in its bid to match the first-place trophy it won at the indoor league meet, the third-place finish was nothing for which to be ashamed. That was especially true, considering that a leg injury had cost the Lady Vols Cook for this meet, sophomores Finley and Leslie Treherne had been shut down for the season, and Champion and Loche were just beginning to work their way into form after being slowed during the outdoor season by ailments.
Beginning with junior Caitlin Ward's fourth-place and career-best outing in the heptathlon, Clark's squad scrapped and clawed for points wherever it could find them. The biggest contributors included Madison, who sailed to 22-8 ½ and charted the best winning long jump mark in the 25-year history of women's competition at the meet; and Tyson, who rocketed to UT's first 100-meter dash title at the event in 21 years and nearly pulled off a double with a runner-up outcome in the 200m. Her times of 11.25 and 22.88, respectively, rank her second on UT's all-time performers list behind Kelli White.
Also providing key support were Guliford, pulling off an indoor/outdoor season sweep in the 5000 meters and taking third in the 10,000 meters; senior Elizabeth McCalley, lowering her school record to 10:27.65 to grab second in the 3000-meter steeplechase; Hall, snagging second in the 400 meters and sixth in the 400-meter hurdles; and Gorham and Thomas, chipping in third-place and career-topping efforts of 2:05.39 and 51-9 ¾, respectively, in the 800 meters and shot put. Those shining moments, combined with second-place results by the 4x100m and 4x400m relays and other point-getters, enabled UT to tally 108.33 points and wind up third, carding the highest point total since 1994 and best finish since 1995.
"It was a super last day," Clark said. "These youngsters have been competing all year, and they showed me their true character once again. To still come here and perform at this level (despite all the athletes who were unable to compete) is a good accomplishment."
The outstanding performances would not end in "Music City," as 15 Lady Vol qualifiers took the show on the road to Bloomington, Ind., for the NCAA Mideast Regional on May 27-28. When the dust had settled, fifth-ranked Tennessee had amassed 82 points to earn its first-ever regional title and automatically qualified seven athletes for the NCAA Championships. Madison, competing with strep throat, earned one of five UT victories on the weekend. The others included Hall (400m) and Tyson (200m), and the 4x100m (Loche/Champion/Olupona/Tyson) and 4x400m (Loche/Hall/Champion/Gorham) relays. Loche, second in the 400m, and Olupona, third in the 100m, also received individual NCAA nods, as did Tyson in her second individual event, with a runner-up finish in the 100m.
When the NCAA Track & Field Committee met and extended its at-large bids for the national meet in Sacramento, Calif., June 8-11, one Lady Vol, Gorham, added the 800m to her workload, while three more UT women earned tickets to the meet for individual events. That trio was comprised of Brooks in the hammer throw, Guliford in the 5000m and Thomas in the shot put. Cook was added to the travel party as a relay alternate by Clark, increasing Tennessee's postseason roster to 11.
Armed with a ranking that had slipped to sixth in the Trackwire poll, the Big Orange strolled into "Sac-Town" hoping to prove that assessment wrong. The close-knit crew from Knoxville did just that, easily winding up fourth and standing eight points out of a runner-up finish and 15 points shy of their second NCAA title of the season, despite competing without several of their comrades.
As it was, the showing was Tennessee's best at the meet in 18 years, enabling the club from Rocky Top to chart its most impressive indoor/outdoor combination of NCAA outcomes since the 1987 edition had results of second and fourth. Leading the 2005 charge was Tyson, the SEC's Outdoor Freshman Runner of the Year, who wowed track observers with her maturity by uncorking finishes of second and third, respectively, in the 100 and 200 meters as well as anchoring the Big Orange 4x100m relay tandem to third in a school-record 43.18.
Madison, who was a finalist for the Honda Sports Award for Track & Field as well as the recipient of USTCA Mideast Region Outdoor Athlete of the Year, closed out her collegiate outdoor season undefeated in six competitions. The AOPi Lady Vol Athlete of the Year selection rode a first attempt leap of 21-10 ¼ to victory and became the initial woman from Rocky Top to record a season sweep of the NCAA long jump hardware.
Olupona wrapped up her final season at UT with her best NCAA effort outdoors, taking fifth in the 100 meters and joining Madison, Champion and Tyson on the 4x1. Champion was also part of the third-place 4x400m relay team with Loche, Hall and Gorham, helping that group lay waste relatively easily to a school record by a full second with a 3:27.46 report. The only other Orange and White representative to grace the top 10 in an event was Guliford, who advanced to the finals of the 5000 meters and came away with a 10th-place result.
"The character of this team really showed up in big meets," said Clark, the USTCA Mideast Region Outdoor Coach of the Year. "They performed at every big meet we've competed in, and we overachieved in every one of them. It's just been unbelievable with the injuries we've had, the year we've had, the struggles we've had, and to come together the way we did shows me this team has a bunch of fighters and warriors."
With those outstanding performances on the track, coupled with junior Katie Flaute, Guliford and Madison reaping ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District IV accolades, 11 members of the squad earning a spot on the Academic Honor Roll and Reust being recognized for her community service via the SEC Good Works Team, it is clear that Tennessee women's track & field has attained a level of excellence that rates it "A Cut Above."
