By Roscoe Nance


The North Carolina A&T State track & field program will be running for a place in history at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships, which will be held in Austin, Texas beginning Wednesday.
 
The Aggies men are ranked 10^th in the nation and the women are 12^th, according to the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), and Director of Track & Field Programs Duane Ross is talking in terms of his squad coming away with a national championship.
 
It would be a first for an HBCU at the Division I level.
 
“Why not us?” Ross said.
 
The Aggies have been nothing short of scintillating this season. The men won the MEAC outdoor championship for third straight year; the women claimed the outdoor title for the second time in three years, and both teams made strong showings at the East Regional Championships, with 10 individuals and four relay teams qualifying for the Outdoor Championships.
 
“I’m really excited for my kids and seeing them embracing what we’re doing and going after this thing the right way and taking shot at winning the championship,” Ross said. “It’s been a good journey for them.”
 
The women have an opportunity to win national championships in the 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 100-meter hurdles, the 4x100-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay. The men are eying titles in the 100, 200, 400, 400-meter hurdles, 110-meter hurdles, the 4x100 and the 4x400 relays. 
 
“We just have to do what we do,” Ross said. “We got to win and we got to win big. That’s the only way of putting it. The only way we win the team championship is to win individual championships. That’s pretty much it, cut and dry. There is no gray area. We’re up to it. We have to go out there and compete on the track. That’s what we’ve been doing this year.”
 
Senior sprinter Kayla White is the linchpin of the women’s team. White, who brought North Carolina A&T State its first track & field national championship when she won the 200-meter indoor title this year in 22.66 seconds, was named the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Athlete of the Year.
 
White is first in the nation and the world in the 100 meters with a time of 10.96 – ran at the 2019 MEAC Championships; she is tied with freshman teammate Cambria Sturgis for the fourth-best time in the nation in the 200 meters at 22.52. White was named the MEAC Outdoor Most Outstanding Performer after winning the 100, 200 and being one-fourth of the championship 4x100-meter relay team. 
 
Sturgis has tied for the ninth-best time in the nation in the 100 meters, 11.17. Junior Madeleine Akobundu is in the National Championships after finishing eighth in the women’s 100-meter hurdles in the East Preliminary in 13.17.
 
The Aggies’ 4x100-relay team of Sturgis, White, Tori Ray and Kamaya Debose-Epps has the 11th-best time in the nation at 43.41. Their 4x400 team of Ray, Sun-Sara Williams, Nilaja Florence and Kristoni Barnes has the 32^nd-best time at 3:33.8.
 
Ray will also compete in the 400 meters.
 
On the men’s side, senior Trevor Stewart has the best time in the 400 meters; he will compete also Rodney Rowe is No. 7 in the 100 with a time of 10.05 and No. 5 in the 200 meters at 20.12. Akeem Lindo is No. 25 in the 400-meter hurdles at 50.42. Senior Michael Dickson is No. 10 in the 110 hurdles at 13.58.
 
The Aggies’ 4x100 relay team of Malcolm Croom-McFadden, Akeem Sirleaf, Dickson and Rowe is No. 11 at 39.14, and the 4x400 team of Lindo, Sirleaf, Stewart and Kemarni Mighty is 19^th at 46.29.
 
Sirleaf (400 meters) and Lindo (400 hurdles) will also compete individually.
 
The Aggies’ large contingent of student-athletes competing in the NCAA Outdoor Championship bolsters Ross’ dreams of a national championship for them. It’s a dream that was born when he took over the program seven years ago
 
“That was the goal from Day 1,” he said. “I realized what we had from Day 1 and I’ve been preaching that since Day 1. I knew what we had as far as resources and support. I knew I just had to put it together, get the right kids in, get them trained up and believing what I believe. Then we’ll put our cards on the table and see what happens. Slowly but surely, that belief took on a life of its own. Now I don’t have to preach it every day, but I do.”
 
Ross acknowledges that his championship dream was a tough sale initially, not only with student-athletes but alumni as well. The Aggies failed to win the MEAC championship in each of his first four seasons, let alone the national championship. He recalls older alumni telling him he was “too ambitious.”
 
“We don’t do things because they’re easy,” he said.
 
Ross has made believers of not only of Aggies student-athletes and alumni, but he also has opposing MEAC coaches believing this could be a very special year for North Carolina A&T State’s program.
 
“I really think A&T is poised to have an all-time showing,” long-time Norfolk State Director of Track and Field Kenneth Giles, whose men’s  teams won seven consecutive outdoor conference championships from 2006-12, said. “The women will come in the top three and the men in the top five. I can’t recall a team that has had that high of showing. I know things go in cycles and repeat themselves, and we here at Norfolk State have had great showings at the regional. But what A&T is doing is just phenomenal. My hat goes off to them.’’
 
The Aggies will see a number of familiar faces from the MEAC at the NCAA Championships. They include:
 

 
“Off the top of my head, this has to be an all-time high (for the conference),” Giles said. “I think the conference will do well. With the showing that A&T has made and the showing that conference made at the East Region Championship, we will do well.”
 
Ross says the total number of student-athletes representing the MEAC is further validation of the conference’s status as a premier track & field league.
 
“That says we’re just as good as any other conference,” he said. “People are always talking about Power Five this and Power Five that. Track & field doesn’t play by those rules. Track & field is, ‘You bring your game and I bring mine, and we’ll see what happens.’ Nobody in this conference is shaking in their boots when we compete because somebody else says they’re from a Power five Conference. That doesn’t exist in our world.”