Track & Field Championships: Worley shows wizardry with his wheels

By Riley Zayas
Horns Illustrated Contributor

This week, from June 5th through 8th, Mike A. Myers stadium will play host to the biggest event in college track and field — The NCAA National Championships. It will be a showcase of the best of the best in the NCAA with athletes competing in a variety of different running and field events, from the 100m dash to the 10,000m run, the high jump to the javelin, this is a meet that will determine the NCAA’s best in 2019.

Considering that the 2019 Texas Texas Track and Field team has enjoyed so much success over the course of the outdoor season, it’s no wonder that 20 different Longhorns will be representing the host team this week. Out of all 20, four have stood out over the course of this journey to the championships. All four have different backgrounds, different stories and run different races, but all stand proud in the Eyes of Texas. Horns Illustrated profiles those four athletes heading into the big meet — Sam Worley, Tripp Piperi, Ashtin Zamzow and Teahna Daniels.

SAM WORLEY

AUSTIN — In 2018, a freshman named Sam Worley established himself as a one of the Big 12’s best men’s distance runners that set the tone for the years to come.

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Worley won the Big 12 1500m title, and was also named the Big 12 Conference Freshman of the Year as he hung with the best in the NCAA, finishing fifth at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

As Worley entered the 2019 outdoor season, many people were wondering how much better the now-sophomore could run with a year of collegiate experience under his belt. It didn’t take long to see that Worley was even stronger this season — not just on pace to perform well, but to reach a new peak consistently in pushing the Longhorns ahead.

The Texas Relays is a huge meet, hosting Olympians, collegiate stars, and the next great runners coming out of high school. Incredibly, facing some of the best competition in the country, Worley ran a 4:04 mile, setting the Longhorn record in that event.

“Running 4:04 at Relays was a good start to the season,” Worley said. “We were still strong coming off of a pretty successful indoor campaign.”

The UT standout also considered that he took away valuable lessons from that race, things that will help him to improve when he runs at the NCAA Outdoor championships here in Austin from June 5-8.

“One of the things I learned was that I can close really fast in the last 400m,” Worley said. “I’ve been able to apply that more to other races this season, such as conference where I finished really hard in the final lap.”

Another aspect of his training which has helped him reach such a high level on the track is the sport of swimming, which has served as excellent cross-training for Worley. A competitive swimmer growing up, he credits swimming for helping him to improve his stamina and speed on the track.

“For sure swimming has helped. It’s great aerobics work and it’s nice to have that supplement,” Worley said.

He will definitely need to bring his A-game for the final meet of the season. With Texas hosting the NCAA Outdoor championships after the meet being on the campus of Oregon for so many years, Worley is determined to finish his last meet of the season with a bang.

“Going into this championship season, I’m going to go in with a little more of the mindset of running for my team and making the team goal happen,” he said.

With the fan base as strong as ever, he is also convinced that they will give him and his team a little bit of a home-track advantage.

“Having NCAAs come to Austin this summer is going to be really special and the fanbase is going to be behind us and they’re going to be cheering for us,” Worley said. “It’s just going to kind of be that extra little spark that can give you a competitive edge.”

For Worley, there is no greater feeling as a runner than crossing the finish line with a win and making the coaches, the team, the school and the fan base proud.

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