Sherita Williams Continues To Make Strides In Women's Track
1/30/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track and Field
The Michigan State women's track team is looking to further develop into a sound program with the core group of young athletes this year. With 30 of the 42 competitors underclassmen, the Spartan team looks to a few shining stars to appear to guide the team.
Sophomore Sherita Williams has proven herself to be just about as bright as they come.
Williams walked onto the MSU campus as a 17-year old with a lot of potential to grow as an athlete and person. Now that 19-year old Williams has a year of Big Ten exposure and experience to look back on, the kinesiology major is on stride to leading the Spartans to a new level of improvement.
"She's learning to be a leader on the team right now," said head coach Angela Goodman, a former triple jumper.
"It's really fun to develop somebody. We're young and trying to really put a program together and we need a couple of shining stars out there."
This Tampa, Fla., native could have been a guiding light in a different sport instead. When looking at colleges her senior year, Williams was looking at smaller schools to continue her basketball career, but on a whim chose to stick with track and accepted the Green & White as her four-year home.
Track was something she started when looking for another sport to compete in her freshman year in high school after the basketball season was over. Then in 10th grade, Williams was given a glimpse of the success she could achieve on the track.
"I ended up going to states in the triple jump in 10th grade," said Williams. "I was the youngest out there and everybody was encouraging me. So many people were telling me that I was good and that I am going to go places. Then I started to notice that maybe I was good at track."
That talent comes from a dedication that has been embedded into Williams' mentality to strive for the best. Always finding something to work on, Williams spent 2-3 hours daily training in the off-season to prepare for the Junior National Championships in Canada. This season, she usually gets to the track around 12:30 and leaves around 4:30.
With a strong will to succeed and hard work, Williams brings a background of experience her teammates can feed off.
"I feel I bring a lot of experience and a lot of dedication as an individual and a teammate," said Williams, who finished fourth in the triple jump at the 2000 Outdoor Big Ten Championships as a freshman. "I want to excel and I want to see our team excel as a whole as well as everybody else individually."
That positive attitude is something Coach Goodman can foresee helping the team.
"Other than a lot of talent, she's brought a lot of confidence in herself which I think is going to carry over to the way the other athletes perceive her as well as perceive themselves," said Goodman.
That perception is what helped her improve at such a rapid pace last year.
"It probably won't happen at the rate that it did last year," said Goodman. "There won't be such big jumps because last year it was so new because she got a whole different training base and strength base. Now she's trying to enhance those things we've already worked on."
Williams continues to see the effect of her dedication to training hard, continually making improvements in the triple jump event. In a dual meet against Notre Dame in the 2001 indoor season, Williams took first with a mark of 40'05.00", bettering her mark of 40'03.40 from last year to remain first on the all-time indoor performances list and remain the school record holder in the event.
Last year was a building block year that assisted Williams in transitioning her potential into ability. Last season she recorded an NCAA provisional mark in the triple jump, recorded the school record in the triple jump and made the U.S. Junior National team in the event.
With every year, she keeps adding to her resume, picking up more skills and events. This year she added the pentathlon and heptathlon after having competed in the long jump, triple jump and hurdles since high school.
With such a desire to be the best, Williams' preparation for a meet is "doing everything possible to get her mind off track."
"I go to the movies before a meet. The more I concentrate the more I worry. It's just a lot better if I just get my mind focused off track. As soon as I hit the track, that's when I start focusing on the meet," said Williams, who usually arrives two hours prior to the start of a meet.
That regimen seems to be a key to her success. Williams has already captured first place six times in the Spartans' last three meets this season, scoring in three different events including the long jump, triple jump and 60-meter high hurdles.
While Williams continues to shine as a star on the Spartan team, the women's track team will commit to making strides in order to grow as a team and a program.
By Courtney Welch, MSU Sports Information Student Assistant
