Earlier this 12 months, a 22-year-old athlete donning orange turned heads when she zoomed down the tracks in Gainesville. And that was none apart from the Tennessee senior Jacious Sears! That lightning-fast 10.77 dash made her the speediest 100m girl this season and second to Sha’Carri Richardson’s long-standing collegiate document by a mere 0.02 seconds. This introduced that one other prodigy had burst onto the fierce athletic stage.
Furthermore, Sears was even named the USTAF Athlete of the Week, adopted by her debut on the Bowerman Watchlist. However whereas the world was solely seeing her rise to the limelight, one man had virtually steered her to this glory. And that was her 51-year-old visionary coach. Let’s have a look.
All about Jacious Sears’ coach
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues beneath this advert
As per Olympics.com, Jacious Sears trains underneath the supervision of Duane Ross. He occurs to be the Head Coach and the Director of Monitor & Area on the College of Tennessee and has held this place since Might 2022. Consequently, he has been accountable for overseeing each the lads’s and ladies’s observe and area packages for this school. However whereas that is Ross’ second season right here, he’s backed by over a two-decade-long teaching and athletic profile.
Beforehand, Ross was positioned on the helm of athletics at North Carolina A&T, as their Director of Monitor and Area for 10 years, 2012-2022. His beneficiant efforts throughout this tenure appeared to have materialized into gorgeous outcomes. To say a number of, Ross mentored the Aggies to 9 top-10 staff finishes at both the NCAA indoor or outside meets.
Furthermore, throughout his tenure, they bagged 16 Mid-Jap Athletic Convention titles. Not simply that, his son Randolph Ross Jr. and a fellow athlete Trevor Stewart clinched gold on the Tokyo Olympics, within the males’s 4×400-meter relay class. Ross, the 2021 Nationwide Coach of the Yr, had beforehand even led Methodist College for 4 years as their Head Coach.
This was after he accomplished a 12 months as a Volunteer Assistant Coach at Clemson in 1996, preceded by one other 4 years of competing for the aspect as a collegiate athlete. Similar to his athletes, Ross tasted success throughout his athletic odyssey, too. He received seven All-America certificates, was a five-time Atlantic Coast Convention champion, and 110-meter hurdles champ on the 1995 NCAA Outside Championships.
As the most recent face of Nike, he even debuted on the 2004 Athens Olympics within the 110-meter hurdles. With such a flexible observe document, it’s for sure that Jacious Sears is being led by a becoming mentor. Apart from, that is one thing that the observe star herself has agreed to a few instances.
It was Sears’ dream to be coached by Duane Ross
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues beneath this advert
Not many know, earlier than the 2023-2024 season, Jacious Sears was an athlete at Miami. However regardless of her brimming potential, she had remained unsuccessful at making it to a NCAA Championship. Nevertheless, it was an intuition that guided her to go the Tennessee approach, or quite the Duane Ross approach. As per Monitor and Area information, Ross was a elementary motivating issue for her to modify to Knoxville.
She as soon as recalled, “When I was in high school, I remember watching [10.95 performer] Kayla White…. Seeing that she was coached by Coach Ross, seeing her progression, it was all so inspiring.” Naturally, Duane Ross’ pupils have proven trajectories which might be too good to be neglected. Thus, Sears confessed, “Definitely coach Ross was the biggest reason, the No. 1 reason why I came to Tennessee…”
ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues beneath this advert
The Palm Seaside Gardens native agrees that transitioning from Miami to Tennessee was a world of a distinction. But it surely has made an indelible affect. She remarked, “And then there comes the coaching. It’s a whole 180, a whole switch. My mindset has changed since being here. And my coaches are literally the biggest reason for that. They literally coach not only physically, like workouts, but they also coach your mind. The transition, it’s been really good….”
The end result of the modified mentorship has been evident in Sears’ latest ascent. Thus, the query stays, can she maintain channeling Ross’ steerage successfully to her profit? Tell us what you suppose.