What if Allyson Felix ran track in college?
Allyson Felix is an Olympic champion and a World Champion. She has actually won more Olympic medals than any other American track athlete, and that is saying a whole lot. However, what makes Allyson Felix special is that she’s more like LeBron James than she was Michael Jordan. She turned professional out of high school and never looked back after it. She became an Olympic medalist all the way back at the age of 18. And she made that decision before social media, or high definition tv was ever really a thing. But what would have happened if she ran in the NCAA? Because we know where she would have run, at USC in the Pac-12. It was the same college that she attended anyway, the entire time she was a young professional sprinter.
In Allyson’s case she would have attended college, before accurate race records were kept online. So the real question that I am asking, is what would have happened if America’s greatest female track athlete competed in this era of the NCAA, against Sha’carri Richardson, Abby Steiner, and even Julien Alfred to complete her career in 2023! So here is a breakdown of what Allyson Felix’s career would look like if she gave it a go in Division 1, and the truth is wilder than you could ever imagine.
How good was Allyson Felix in high school?
Allyson Felix was the track and field athlete of the year as a senior in California, during the same year where she made team USA for the World Championships and qualified for the final! The following year when she would have been a freshman in college, she made the Olympic team to become a silver medalist. But for the purpose of this what if, we are not touching anything she did in a world championship or Olympic race. We are going to assume that her season best outside of those competitions will hold up as her best for the entire NCAA season. And her freshman year at USC will now start in 2019.
Freshman year
For the indoor 60 meter dash as a freshman she would run just 7.32 seconds, her best time from the season she actually ran as a pro. But her 200 indoors would convert to 22.65. She’d finish 10th in the indoor 60 meter dash, barely missing the final. But her teammate Twanisha Terry would win the whole event for USC. Her 200 meter dash would also be a lot closer than you think. She would win the NCAA championships running 22.65, but by one hundredth of a second. Because Kayla White a who was a senior from North Carolina A&T would be right behind her! Those ten points would make a big difference for USC, but they would still lose to Arkansas in the NCAA meet by just 2 points.
Outdoors Allyson would run 11.16 in the 100 meter dash and 22.28 wind legal. And at the NCAA outdoor championships she would need both of them to get every point she could for the Trojans. She would make the 100 meter final making it 3 ladies from USC on the starting line. But they would all lose to Sha’carri Richardson with Allyson likely finishing in 7th place. But she would get her back on the 200, beating both her and her teammate Angie Annelus barely, to repeat as the 200 meter national champion, both indoors and outdoors. Those points would be enough to win the NCAA championship for USC overtaking Arkansas.
Sophomore year
In 2020 there was no NCAA championship indoors or outdoors and we all know why, so Allyson would not touch the track again at a championship meet until 2021. Her 60 meter dash would be greatly improved, so much in fact that she likely would finish 5th at the NCAA indoor championships, behind her teammate Twanisha Terry once again, and Kemba Nelson of Oregon. But even though she would run a new PR indoors in the 200 meter dash, she would actually lose in the NCAA final finishing third to both Tamara Clark of Alabama and Abby Steiner of Kentucky! USC would only finish third in the meet, and a new rivalry would be born!
Outdoors she would bring her new speed to the 100 meter dash running 11.04. But she would still only finish fifth at the NCAA outdoor meet in the 100, with Cambrea Sturgis of North Carolina A&T running away with the crown. She would also finish third again in the 200 meter dash. outdoors failing to repeat as champion behind Tamara Clark once again, and Cambrea herself. But ironically USC already won the NCAA championship without Allyson’s help for 2021 in reality. So they would do it again with her help!
Junior year
Junior year would be a big one for Allyson, because she would run the 400 meter dash for the first time at the NCAA meet. She would not only make the final but finish second in the race to Talitha Diggs of Florida. Everything we have to go off of, says that race is going down to a photo finish! But she would double it with 200 meter dash hoping to win her second indoor title. But she would be denied. She would run a little bit faster in the 60 and in the 200 meter dash to qualify for the NCAA indoor finals in both. But this time in the 200 meter dash she would finish second to Abby Steiner once again! USC would finish sixth overall in the meet, and Allyson would have to wait until June for another crack at the championship.
Outdoors she would run the 400 and the 200 again at the championship meet, but the results wouldn’t change that much. She’d finish second in the 400 to Talitha Diggs once again. And lose to Abby Steiner in the 200 finishing third. That is beacuse Favour Ofili is really fast, although Abby is faster. What is even more interesting is that this year, USC would need every one of Allyson’s points just to crack the top ten.
Senior year
So with one final season remaining, Allyson Felix’s senior year, she would still be gunning for her third NCAA championship either indoors or outdoors, with Abby Steiner finally out of the equation. But her Senior year would collide with Julien Alfred and Britton Wilson both running new collegiate records in her events. She wouldn’t win another title indoors or outdoors in any events, but she would be right there on the podium, likely finishing in second place in any race that she ran. However, she would struggle in the 60 meter dash, because that race she would learn to avoid by now. USC wouldn’t threaten to win as a team at the indoor or outdoor championships but Allyson Felix would still have more NCAA medals of any color than perhaps any woman in history, with 12 to her name. She would also have double gold in the 200 both indoors and outdoors as a freshman.
The Bottom Line
The truth is that the modern era of women’s sprinting in the NCAA is by far the best it has ever been. It is an era that Allyson Felix herself helped to inspire. She’s the winningest woman in American track and field history, who was honestly just getting started in her early 20s. We may never know what she would have done if she chose to run in college. But we do know that she will go down as one of the greatest to ever do it on any track, at any level, so long as she is on the starting line.
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