Summer 2013 brought track-mageddon upon the University.
It seemed like the end of the world when longtime Illinois women’s track and field coach Tonja Buford-Bailey decided to leave her alma mater to join the Texas Longhorns as associate head coach.
As an athlete, Buford-Bailey was an integral part of Illinois athletics in the early ‘90s, winning 25 Big Ten conference titles and the 1992 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA Championships. She then went on to compete on three USA Olympic teams (1992, 1996 and 2000), leaving the 1996 games in Atlanta with a bronze medal.
As a coach, Buford-Bailey was no less spectacular. She began her tenure at the University of Illinois in 2004, serving as an assistant coach until 2007 when she was promoted to associate head coach, and then again in 2008 when she took on the head coaching role. In her five years as head coach, she earned numerous accolades for the successes of her teams and her development of individuals, such as NCAA champions Andrew Riley and Ashley Spencer.
Losing a coach of Buford-Bailey’s caliber is never a good thing, but couple that with star sprinters Spencer and Morolake Akinosun’s decisions to join her down in Austin, Texas, and the Illini have a problem. A gaping hole now represents what used to be one of the finest athlete-coach combinations in the sport today.
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After completing her freshman year at Illinois, Akinosun was crowned USA Junior 100-meter champion, which qualified her to compete at the Pan American Junior Championships in Colombia in August. She was also a part of the 1600-meter relay team — along with Spencer — that broke school records on the way to finishing fifth at the NCAA Championships in early June.
This spring, Spencer led the Illini to top-20 finishes in both the indoor and outdoor seasons while amassing plenty of individual titles. These include 2013 Indoor and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and defending her 2012 400-meter title at nationals in June. She was a two-time World Junior Champion and a member of Team USA at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.
Not to mention, she was the winner of The Daily Illini’s Illini of the Year award.
Every Illini fan should be squirming with discomfort at the loss of athletes like Spencer and Akinosun. We here in Champaign-Urbana find ourselves faced with disappointment in athletics — in some capacity — almost every year. Track and field was a shining beacon of hope to a student body accustomed to a football team that goes 2-10 on the season and a basketball program that, for the past couple of years, had underachieved.
New head coach Ron Garner returns to Illinois almost twenty years after serving as an assistant coach during the ‘90s, but he is faced with what one can assume is a disheartened but determined group of athletes. Coaching changes aren’t rare, but they can hurt. Only time will tell how the rest of the team, including senior standout Amanda Duvendack, rise to the challenge.
Moral of the story? While we shouldn’t count out our Illini, watch out for Texas this coming year. Chances are, they’re the team to beat.
Aryn is a senior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @arynbraun.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly referenced Samantha Murphy as an athlete on the women’s track and field team. Murphy has transferred to the University of Oregon. The Daily Illini regrets the error.
