Path of a Hurricane: Amy Deem
By Emily Dabau
A team with insignificant athlete records and a nonexistent NCAA qualifying mark is what she started with. Over 170 All-Americans and 12 national champions is what she has created.
Amy Deem, director of track and field/cross country at the University of Miami, began her journey with the university in 1988 when she started a six-week internship in the UM Athletic Department while working toward her Master’s Degree in sports administration.
The six-week internship turned into a career.
Deem stayed as a part-time employee until she later picked up a full-time position as head coach to start the women’s track and field program at the university in 1990. In 2008, she was promoted to her current position of director of track and field/cross country and became the sixth woman to oversee a men’s and women’s track program at a Division 1 school.
Since then, she has helped her athletes score ACC and NCAA titles, gain honors at conference and national championships and make it to the Olympics.
Seeing the success of her athletes is what she enjoys the most, she explained.
“One of my favorite things is seeing the alumni come back here and they have jobs and they have kids, and just to see them being productive and have great lives, and to maybe have a small part of them being able to have that,” she said.
Deem has led athletes to success not only in Miami, but also in London at the 2012 Olympic Games where she served as head coach for USA track and field. Deem helped guide the women’s track and field team to one of the most dominating performances in USA Olympic track and field history. The team won 14 medals, including six gold, four silver and four bronze. Overall, she was part of the Team USA who won more medals and gold medals than any other nation at the Games. Three of her former athletes – Murielle Ahoure, T’erea Brown and Lauryn Williams – competed in the Games. Ahoure (100m, 200m) and Brown (400m hurdles) reached the finals of their events, while Williams earned gold as part of the 4x100m relay pool.
The celebration of success was cut short, however, by the loss of her mother two months later.
“Coming off the Olympic games was such a great experience. It was such a high. We had so much success. And then I lost my mom,” Deem said. “That was really tough, to be able to go through that, and then to still come out here and feel like you’re not cheating the athletes and give them the energy. They deserve it, it wasn’t their fault. So that for me was a tough year.”
After overcoming the hard circumstances, Deem was able to get herself back on her feet and continue leading her athletes toward championship titles.
“She was always very supportive and wanted me to travel,” Deem said of her mother.
And she has done just that.
“I never really envisioned traveling the world for track and field, being the world championship coach, being the Olympic coach,” she said.
An only child from Parkersburg, West Virginia, Deem grew up an athlete, joining her dad in outdoor activities like skiing and other sports. Passionate about tennis, swimming and track, she chose to pursue track and field in high school and college. Knee injuries kept her from further pursuing a lifelong career as an athlete, but she kept her passion to someday become a coach and teach in order to make a difference in her own way.
Today it is that same ambition that drives her.
“I was very competitive and I like sports so that gave me the avenue to do everything that I really wanted to do,” she said. “For me, it’s really seeing people progress, seeing people meet their goals…being a small part of their success, or putting them at a position to be successful, is why I still do it.”
So far, she has been making that impact, from track and field sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Lauryn Williams to every other athlete that crosses her path.
Deem pushes her athletes to be the greatest with an independent and encouraging coaching style, said UM track and field senior Taneisha Cordell.
“It’s unlike other coaches. She is fond of her athletes being more independent at most practices,” Cordell said. “She tends to be very hard on most due to their potential and ability to be great in their specific event.”
Another quality of her coaching is her individual attention to each of the athletes.
“She is good at focusing not just on one person – paying attention to everybody,” said sophomore Anthonia Moore, a sprinter on the women’s track and field. “She’s good at equally spreading out her time.”
The best piece of advice she has for her athletes is about attitude.
“You’re not always going to have a great day, but you’ve got to control your attitude about that,” Deem said. “The thing I always try to talk about is having great attitude and great effort, and then you can work through almost anything.”
“’There’s two things you can control; your effort and your attitude.” Before every competition you can count on her saying that,” Cordell said. “You execute those two things and she’s satisfied.’’
