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.
Teahna Daniels
Every athlete has an inspiration.
For Texas sprinter Teahna Daniels, it was her late father, Wellice, who Daniels described as her “biggest fan.”
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After his unexpected death in late February of 2018, she wasn’t sure if she’d even run again. But she wanted to make her dad proud and one way to do that was to use the speed he had always encouraged her to unleash.
“His support and love for me is always there,” she said. “So returning back to the track for him meant a lot.”
Daniels didn’t just do alright in her return, either. She won the Big 12 Women’s 100m dash and has continued to perform at a high level each meet, especially at the 2019 Texas Relays. At the meet — which was the inspiration for her want to come to Texas as a high schooler — the senior won the 200m Women’s Invitational, beating Nike’s Jasmine Camacho Quinn and fellow Longhorns Serenity Douglas and Kennedy Simon.
Daniels credits confidence playing a big role in that victory.
“Confidence within myself and I know what I’m capable of doing,” she said. “Having that support from my coach pushes me even harder.”
That same confidence will be extremely important at such a big meet and so much is at stake. In Daniels’ races, all of 
which are sprint events, races are often decided by hundredths of a second. As a result, perfection is necessary. Having run in so many important meets since starting her running career, she is experienced and is thankful for the opportunity to finish her time at Texas at home.
“I just wanted to make sure I can go out with a bang for my senior year,” Daniels said. “The atmosphere here at Texas is definitely an advantage.”
With so many great athletes competing for the Horns, victory seems near. No doubt, running at home in front of their home crowd will be a much-needed edge for Texas and athletes and coaches alike are encouraging Texas fans young and old to come out and support the team during the final and most important meet of the season.
Hosting the NCAAs won’t only be an enjoyable experience for the fans, it will also be a great meet for the runners, who get to represent their school in front of a large group of Texas supporters.
Interview with Teahna Daniels (video courtesy of the Longhorn Network):
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