Path to Nationals: Alysha Newman
By David Villavicencio
Path to Nationals is a five-part feature series profiling the five student-athletes who will represent the University of Miami track and field program at the 2014 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Championships.
What do you call a school record-holder, a conference medalist and a national qualifier?
Alysha Newman.
The superb sophomore’s third-place finish in the women’s pole vault at the ACC Indoor Championships set a new school record. Newman cleared a personal-best 4.35m that ranks seventh in the nation and secured her spot in the field at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
“It feels awesome,” Newman said of reaching nationals. “It’s top 16 in the nation so not a lot of people get a chance to do that. It’s my second year qualifying and I feel honored.”
While she may feel awesome and honored to reach the NCAA Indoor Championships for the second straight year, Newman also feels unsatisfied.
“Finishing third at ACCs really made me mad,” Newman said. “I don’t like coming in third. I’m ready to do better in the NCAAs this weekend because I’m not a third-place athlete.”
While she loves Newman’s desire to be the best, Miami director of track and field/cross country Amy Deem has tried to teach the talented vaulter to enjoy her accomplishments.
“We’re a win/loss society, but I think the biggest thing to do is to go out there and perform your best,” Deem said. “It’s a cliché, but sometimes you have to ask yourself ‘did you lose, or did you just get beat?’ When you got beat, it’s because someone was better than you. But if you lose, you didn’t go out and do the best you can do. I think that’s where you keep it in perspective for her.
“If she goes out and has a great NCAA championship and she doesn’t win, she did her part,” Deem said. “Some days you’re just going to get beat by a better person or a better team.”
Jerel Langley is charged with developing Newman as a pole vaulter. Miami’s jumps coach also tries to get Newman to understand that she is successful even if she is not always atop the podium.
“It was a tough competition and I told her she had nothing to be ashamed about,” Langley said of Newman’s performance at the ACC Indoor Championships. “She had the seventh-best performance in the entire country and she finished third in the conference and it was an indoor personal best. Somehow that’s how the chips fall. When you’re in good competition, you get people who are just as good as you.”
That eternal desire to be the best has helped push Newman to some incredible heights. The Delaware, Ontario, native was the 2013 MAC champion in the pole vault and set Canadian Junior National records in both indoor (4.23m) and outdoor (4.40m) pole vault, as well as the Pan-American Junior Championship meet record at 4.40m.
“I’m hoping that quality that she has will kind of bleed into the rest of the team because I think it takes that type of attitude to be successful,” Deem said. “Having the same attitude surrounding her will give her a little extra and will also put us in a better place as a team.”
In her first meet as a Hurricane, Newman posted what was then the top pole vault mark in the country.
By clearing 4.31m at the Rod McCravy Memorial Meet, Newman shattered the previous Miami school record (Lauren Koutrelakos, 3.20m in 2003) and set a new meet record. She also earned ACC Performer of the Week honors, joining teammate Shakima Wimbley as Canes to win the award this season.
At the ACC Indoor Championships, Newman faced off against two fellow NCAA qualifiers, Duke’s Megan Clark and Virginia Tech’s Martina Schultze. The three vaulters kept raising the bar until Schultze claimed the gold medal with a mark of 4.40m.
Newman set a new personal best at ACCs despite heading into the meet in disarray.
“She had a rough two weeks at practice and a hard time moving around,” Langley said. “Even with those kinds of practices leading up, I knew the competitor in her was still going to do something good. But if we can start getting practice consistent under our belt and get that focus back in practice, there’s no telling what she can do.”
One thing Newman knows she can do heading into her second consecutive NCAA Indoor Championships is be better prepared.
“I know the layout and I know the rules,” Newman said. “I know they do this five alive thing that they don’t really do anywhere except in the nationals or in the world championships. Last year, I was totally blown out of the water because I had no idea what it was. I had to step aside to the official and have him explain it to me because I’d never seen it before.”
“Five alive” is a method of establishing rotating flights in vertical jump events with large fields. The NCAA recommends that it be used whenever there are nine or more competitors at a given height. When the number of competitors at a given height is fewer than nine, the five-alive system is dropped and replaced by a continuous flight until the next height change.
Langley agrees that last year’s experience will help Newman in her second attempt to reach the podium at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
“I think it definitely should help just having gone there as a freshman last year,” Langley said. “Going in last year, it was a little bit of a bright lights, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen here?’ experience. Now it’s somewhere that she’s been and somewhere she wants to be every year. Hopefully we’ll have a little bit of the nerves gone that she had last year and she can focus on what she needs to focus on.”
Newman has been preparing diligently for her first opportunity to represent the Hurricanes at the NCAA meet and her event coach is excited with the progress she has made before going to Albuquerque, N.M.
“We’ve started off with a couple of good practices, so we’re looking forward to see what she can do up there,” Langley said. “Her confidence is definitely back with her full approach and taking off on those bigger poles. Hopefully she uses that confidence she got from ACCs and the drive of her not being satisfied to motivate her in the nationals.”
While she understands the advice her coaches have given her about enjoying her success, Newman’s goal heading into the 2014 NCAA Indoor Championships is clear.
“I’m not a person to go for numbers,” Newman said. “I’m a person who goes for first or nothing, so whatever I have to jump that day to be No. 1 is what I’ll jump.”
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