AURORA | Tashay Brown is fast — really fast — but finalizing where she’d run in college seemed to move at the plodding pace of a marathon.
It took until after her recent graduation from Eaglecrest High School for the sprint standout to finally arrive at a decision about her competitive future, as she signed with the University of Colorado in Boulder in early June.
“It was long and very nervewracking; it felt like it was never-ending,” Brown said of her process finding a college. “At times I thought, ‘OK, I know where I want to go,’ but then I’d go somewhere else and change my mind. It was long and a little confusing, too. It’s harder than it seems.”
She had some possibilities with schools in the Mountain West Conference, but in the end, Brown decided she wanted to race against the top-notch competition the Buffaloes face in the Pac-12 Conference — even if it means getting humbled along the way.
“Colorado’s in a better conference; I know people go to school for education, but at the same time I dream to run in the Olympics someday,” Brown said. “If you want to go to that next level, you have to compete against the top level. I want that competition. To come is a freshman, you have to get beat down (in races) before you get better.”
Brown heads to the next level after a satisfying ending to her prep career at Eaglecrest at the Class 5A state track meet in May, especially considering she missed about two months of action due to a pulled hamstring she suffered at the Simplot Games.
She was part of the Raptors’ 800 meter sprint relay team — which also featured fellow seniors Omotumininu Olatipo and Alicia Taurchini and junior Tori Coombe — that won the state championship that had just eluded them in previous seasons and along with Olatipo, Taurchini and sophomore Deme McDowell took third in the 4×200 relay.
Individually, Brown finished third in a lightning fast final of the 200 meters with a time of 24.20 seconds, matching the third-place finish in the same event she had as a sophomore.
“I always want to finish whatever I started, so I wanted to finish at Eaglecrest,” Brown said. “The coaches helped me out a lot, so I wouldn’t want to change it…my best memory was winning the state championship in the medley relay.”
Brown competed in the Great Southwest Classic June 5-7 at the University of New Mexico — as part of the Colorado girls team that won the championship among teams from 20 states and plans to shut it down for the rest of the summer to be ready to start fresh in Boulder. She plans to enter the school’s Integrated Physiology program, which will put her on track for her goal to become an occupational therapist.
Courtney Oakes is Sports Editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. Facebook: Aurora Prep Sentinel