Friday Features: Shorter's Ayana Walker runs her way into history
By Mike Perrin
Track and field is a numbers game. Run or throw, time it or measure it. Record it.
Run fast enough, jump high enough, throw far enough and you get your name written in the record book. The nature of the sport, though, is that somebody eventually will erase your name.
Shorter University’s
Ayana Walker knows all about that. She’s erased records held by previous Lady Hawks. More than once.
The redshirt junior also, on March 14, assured her name will never be wiped away no matter how fast some future Lady Hawk runs. Walker ran the 400-meters at Birmingham’s CrossPlex in 53.29 seconds to become an NCAA Division II national champion. She is Shorter’s first NCAA champion in the Gulf South Conference school’s first year of eligibility and nobody will be able to supplant her.
“At the time, the fact that I was the first NCAA champion was the furthest thing from my mind,” the Millen, Ga., native said. “I was in a total state of shock. Walking to my blocks, I saw where Tovea Jenkins from Johnson C. Smith ran a 53.8. I had run my indoor personal record the day before (a 54.77), and I thought I ran pretty hard for that 54.7. Imagine my shock when I saw 53.29 appear on the screen!
“All I could do was praise God. I was in total disbelief. I don’t think it sunk it until 30 minutes later. What a blessing!”
Walker and freshman Alfred Chelanga, who finished fourth in the 3,000-meter run, were the first athletes from Shorter to compete in the NCAA Championships. Walker wasn’t new to winning titles, though. She was a two-time indoor National Christian College Athletic Association champion last year during Shorter’s final year of transition from NAIA to the NCAA.
Despite her great success, running indoors was something Walker had only done since her first year at Shorter. “We have been running at the Crossplex since my freshman year,” she said. “It was there that I ran my first-ever indoor meet. I ran a 58-second 400. That was also my first collegiate race.”
Her first competitive race came for the Jenkins County High School team. “I was fortunate enough to go to a small high school where it was easier for me to be involved in a lot of things,” Walker said. “I started running track in 2008 – my freshman year. There was never an ‘off season’ for me. I was either playing softball – which is my favorite sport – basketball, tennis, JROTC Raiders, cross country or running track.”
Walker, who will graduate with a degree in communications in May 2016, comes from a large extended family. “I was raised as an only child by my mother, Pamela Luke,” she said. “She's awesome. My mom’s husband has four children and my dad and his wife have six children. We are all very close and they are so supportive of me and always have been. Most of us have played sports at some point in our lives. One of my brothers played football for Stillman College (in Tuscaloosa, Ala.) for a few years, but other than that, I am the only athlete.”
Walker said coach Scott Byrd suggested a redshirt year following her freshman indoor track season in order to give her two years to compete in the NCAA. “I needed that time to grow up and develop as an athlete, and it obviously paid off.”
Walker’s skills have definitely paid off. She has the school indoor records in the 400 (with the NCAA title-clinching performance) and 200 (24.67) and the outdoor mark for the 400 with a 53.76 run. In 2012, Walker was the Mid-South Conference champion in the 400 and shared the title in the 4x100 relay. She was named an NAIA All-American in the 400 meters, 4x400 and 4x100. The next season Walker was a National Christian College Athletic Association All-American in the 200, 400, 4x200 and 4x400 along with being an indoor national champion in the 200, 400, 4x200 and 4x400.
What’s next? “My outdoors goal is 51 seconds in the 400-meter dash and 23 in the 200 meters,” she said. “As far as my career, I have no idea what I want to do and I refuse to let myself panic because I know I have time.
“I could definitely see myself competing after college. I am such a competitor at heart that I think it would be hard for me to stop after all this time and enter the work force with no looking back. Even if I never become the next (Olympic gold medalists) Allyson Felix or Sanya Richards-Ross, I think it would be fun just to try and say I did. Hopefully, this is all in line with God's plan for my life. I am still praying about it all, though.”
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11/14/2014 - Revival of a Rivalry.
11/21/2014 - VSU's Margaret Stauffer Finds Strength in Team, Family.
11/28/2014 - Union Off and Running.
12/05/2014 - UWA Coach Ray Stanfield Pushes Cross Country Teams to Top.
12/12/2014 - CBU Men's Basketball Making Noise.
12/19/2014 - Dickey Says UWG Football 'Right on Schedule'.
12/26/2014 - Youngsters Lead UWF Women.
1/02/2015 - UAH's Owens Rebounds From Car Crash With New Appreciation for Life, Basketball.
1/09/2015 - Freshmen Building Base for Lee Women's Success.
1/16/2015 - UWA's Chad Toocheck Overcame Addiction Lows to Reach Highs on Field.
1/23/2015 - Basketball Court at Delta State Named For a 'Legend'.
1/30/2015 - Shorter Basketball Coaches Celebrate Milestones Victories.
2/06/2015 - Union Outfielder Unfazed by Physical Challenges.
2/13/2015 - VSU's Courtney Albritton Rewriting Record Books.
2/20/2015 - Campbell Leaves 'Mark' as Union Women's Hoops Coach.
2/27/2015 - UNA's Spehr Leads From 'Down Under'.
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3/20/2015 - "Snow" Start Sidelines CBU Early.