There have been challenges, but through rebuilding and fierce determination, the teams successfully cleared their hurdles and brought a long, hard-fought victory home.

Women

After the women’s track and field team won the program’s first-ever MEAC championship, with a convincing victory, junior Morgan Knight said it came about because the Aggies own the sprints.

Is that Arrogance? Knight pushes back on that notion. Cockiness? Not quite. Overconfidence? Nope. These are Aggies, it’s all about pride.

“Some of our rivals in the conference call us ‘Sprint U’”, said Duane Ross, director of track and field programs, describing the Aggies tradition of dominating in sprinting events. “We take that as a compliment. Our ladies take pride in it. If we’re not going to do anything else, that straight, whether it is the 60 (meters), 200, 100 outdoors, we’re going to own it.”

The Lady Aggies owned, franchised and incorporated the sprints during the competition. They scored victories in the 60, 400, 60-meter hurdles and 4x400. Sophomore Kayla White, freshman Madelein Akobundu and Knight finished 1, 2 and 3 in the 60mh. But here is the scary thing for all those rivals calling N.C. A&T Sprint U. The Aggies diversified their portfolio over the weekend.

There were also wins in the pole vault, long jump and triple jump.  The team scored 145 points during the indoor championships, 51 more points than their closest foe, Florida A&M. They dominated the meet by scoring in multiple events outside of the sprints. The distance medley relay team finished third to post six points. Not only did freshman Akobundu win the long jump, teammate Anisa Toppin, finished second.

The Aggies also scored in the pentathlon, 800m, 1-mile and 3000m. Depth outside of the sprints is certainly not where the ladies finished after the 2016 outdoor season. When the Aggies competed in the 2016 MEAC Track and Field Outdoor Championships last May at N.C. A&T’s Irwin Belk Track, they had 13 athletes. In less than a year, they were jumping up and down celebrating a title.

“I’m not surprised at all that we won it. In fact, at the beginning of the season I was more confident in the women coming in here and running away with it because our recruiting went so well. We put together the women’s team slowly because we really wanted to put together a complete team,” said Ross whose strategy when he came to N.C. A&T in 2012 was to build the men first, then the women.

Men

Indeed, Ross focused on rebuilding the men’s team first, nevertheless there always seemed to be an unrelenting shadow cast over them. Second place became a plague throughout the men’s track and field programs. How bad was it?

Men’s cross country finished second at the MEAC championships in 2014 and ’15. The outbreak carried over into outdoor season where the Aggies have now finished second at the MEAC championships three years in a row starting in 2014. That includes a one-point defeat in 2015. Indoor was no different. The men finished second in 2015 and ‘16. In 2015 they lost by 1.5 points.

But when Ross’ men’s team took a huge cooler of water and dumped it over his head on after they won the 2017 MEAC Indoor Track and Field Championships, it was the perfect image of his team figuratively washing off all those second-place finishes.

That wasn’t the only thing they were washing off, however.  The Aggies put water to a 21-year indoor championship drought. They also won the program’s first-ever outright MEAC indoor title after the 1996 team shared it with Maryland Eastern Shore. There was no rationing on Saturday, however. The Aggies took the title outright with 146.5 points.

“That was the plan,” said Ross. “Nothing against my counterparts, but my mission was to win this thing by keeping other teams from scoring 100 points. I wanted to get rid of second place and do it in a way that no one would remember we ever got second place.”

As the day progressed however, there was no question the Aggies second-place run was over. They were so impressive they became the No. 1 trending topic inside the sports complex. All four N.C. A&T 60-meter finalists finished in the top-4 led by junior Chris Belcher’s 6.65. He led a group of top-3 finishers in the 200 as well as finished with a 21.38 followed by sophomore Rodney Rowe (21.59) and senior Caleb Gabriel (21.78).

The Aggies had the meet won by the time the final event of the day, the 4x400 relay, came around. Yet the Aggies brought the crowd to their feet with a first-place finish in 3:16.91.

“We’re starting to score points in areas we haven’t scored before,” said Ross. “We’re putting together a team where it is going to take a pretty good effort to beat us. I’m like most coaches, I want to leave behind a championship legacy.”

It’s all about having the right mindset, says Brown. And what is that mindset? “Winning,” Brown answered. “You need to know you’re the best and then go out and show it.”

Arrogance? Nope. Aggie Pride