Outside the gates of Mike A. Myers Stadium last June, sheltered
from the rowdy hometown Texas crowd, UCLA’s Dawn Harper stood
with her parents, head down, teary-eyed, her mind a raging storm of
doubt.
Only minutes before, on perhaps the fastest track in America,
Harper squandered her best chance yet to win a national title.
Close behind the leaders in the finals of the 100-meter hurdles at
last year’s NCAA Outdoor Championships, Harper smacked the
seventh hurdle, losing her balance and falling back in the pack by
the time she regained her stride.
“Before I hit that hurdle, I was in good position,”
Harper said.
So afterwards, she couldn’t help but dwell on the race.
For weeks, Harper relived it in her mind, questioning whether she
would ever be in that situation again.
“I had never seen her like that,” Dawn’s
mother Linda Harper said. “It was really hard on her because
she couldn’t believe the outcome. She pretty much fell apart.
We didn’t talk for a while because she had a lot to think
about.”
Including, in due time, putting the setback behind her.
By the beginning of UCLA’s fall training, Harper, a
junior, pledged that her disappointment would not carry over into
this season. Channeling her frustration into her practice habits,
the Illinois native has emerged as one of the nation’s top
hurdling prospects this season and will look to capture her first
national championship in the 60-meter hurdles at this
weekend’s NCAA Indoor Championships in Arkansas.
“It’s great motivation for me,” Harper said.
“I would have finished in the top four if I hadn’t hit
that hurdle. That makes me feel like this year I can be No.
1.”
High standards
From the outset of her track and field career, Harper has always
been her own harshest critic.
After a rare mediocre race in middle school, she would set up a
foam hurdle in her driveway and hone her technique until the sun
sank beneath the horizon.
When the six-time Illinois state champion arrived at UCLA in the
fall of 2002, she raised her own expectations even higher. Harper
becomes so distraught after a sluggish race that her teammates have
learned to let her stew by herself for a while. When her parents,
Henry and Linda Harper, call her after a meet, they come to expect
their daughter to find fault with even her best performances.
“That’s what champions do,” UCLA coach
Jeanette Bolden said. “She’s never satisfied. She
always wants to improve herself.”
“Even at practice when things don’t go well, she
gets pretty frustrated,” former UCLA hurdler Sheena Johnson
said. “We usually let her take some time by herself. We
probably wouldn’t want to talk to her until the next day at
practice.”
The first to try to console Harper after her championship
misfortune last June was Bolden, who pulled her off to the side the
night after her disappointing eighth-place finish while the rest of
the Bruins celebrated their first national championship in more
than two decades.
“We did win by one point,” Bolden told her.
“That was probably your point. A win is a win, and this is
your first time in the NCAA finals. You do have two more
years.”
Yet, while Harper composed herself enough to pose for pictures
and smile for the television cameras, inside she seethed. It was
her mother and father who felt the brunt of her grief over the next
few weeks.
“Parents get the tears,” Dawn Harper said.
“They were the laps I cried in.”
Rebounding strong
A three-month layoff after the U.S. Olympic Trials and the
advice of her family members and coaches helped heal Harper’s
emotional wounds.
Fueled by the desire to avenge last June’s mishap and to
help the program absorb the loss of former Bruins Johnson and Sani
Roseby, two of the nation’s top hurdlers last year, Harper
has returned to the track more focused than ever.
“You can see her stepping up in practice,” Bolden
said. “You can tell she’s taken on the responsibility
that she is the one, and the hurdles are her event. She knows she
can’t rely on anyone else now.”
Though practice is less competitive without Johnson and Roseby,
Harper has done her best to stay motivated. Healthier than she was
a year ago when she was still recovering from her second offseason
knee surgery, Harper has spent more time on the track this season,
increasing her leg strength and improving her block starts.
The extra practice time has translated into a successful indoor
campaign.
Harper won the 60-meter hurdles at the conference championships
last month, lowering her lifetime best to 8.12 seconds. That mark
is tied for the second fastest in the nation this year, .12 seconds
slower than Nebraska’s Priscilla Lopes.
“She’s taken on more of a captain’s
role,” sophomore hurdler MacKenzie Hill said.
“She’s spread her confidence to all of us.”
Harper’s confidence, shaken last June, is at a high point
right now. Simply running a clean race and improving on her
fourth-place finish in the 60-meter hurdles at last year’s
NCAA Indoor Championships would not be enough to satisfy Harper
right now.
“A top-four finish is not in my vocabulary,” she
said. “I want the title.”
To avenge her costly error in Austin and secure an elusive
national championship, Harper knows she’ll have to run faster
than she ever has before.
How fast?
“I don’t want to say,” Harper said. “But
it’s going to shock some people.”
“Faster than 8.12 seconds,” Bolden said.
“I’ll say that.”
Even if Harper falls short of first place, she doesn’t
expect to go into a tailspin like she did last June. Outdoor season
began this past weekend, and Harper expects to be one of
UCLA’s team leaders as it looks to repeat as national
champions.
“My confidence is very strong,” Harper said.
“I have no worries right now.”