Female Speedsters Restoring

MSU Track Legacy

By Rasheim T. Freeman
Hailing from France, the U.S.Virgin Islands,
California, and right here in Baltimore,
Morgan State Track and Field Coach Neville
Hodge's female athletes give new meaning to
the term "world-class speed."
Led by Junior Romona Modeste, Hodge has
fielded a young group of international
sprinters who conjure up images of the
Olympic and Penn Relay championship track
teams of old, coached by the legendary
Eddie P. Hurt.
At the 2005 NCAA Track and Field champi-
onships, Modeste was the only female ath-
lete from a Historically Black College and
University to qualify for the NCAA track and
field championships in Sacramento.
Of her accomplishment, Modeste said, "I was
in complete shock when some of the male
athletes told me that I was the only woman
from a HBCU to qualify".
At the 2005 Mid Eastern Athletic Conf.
Championships, Modeste and company
unseated last year's champion, private
school powerhouse Hampton University.
Severine Tanic of France and Nichelle Gibbs
of the U.S. Virgin Islands won gold in the
heptathlon and the 800-meter dash respec-
tively. And Modeste blew by the rest of the
field in the 400 meter hurdles in 59.43 sec-
onds, a full two seconds ahead of the brides-
maid finisher, Hampton's Chandra Pulliam.
Buoyed by her performance in the hurdles,
Modeste ran the anchor leg in the 4 x 400
meter relay with Janice Smythe of Jamaica
and Mariama Gondo of Sierra Leone (now a
Baltimore resident) in what was essentially a
coming out party for the international
sprinters.
"If you go to the Caribbean you will find 80%
of US coaches looking at Caribbean athletes
because they are so special and they have a
lot of talent despite a lack of resources," said

MORGAN MAGAZINE 18
MEAC: 2005 WOMEN’S TRACK
Champions
MSU 2005 outdoor women’s track team
Coach Hodge. "Some youngsters train
on grass, others run barefooted, which
is difficult because the grass doesn't
give like a track surface, but they post
times that rival American runners."
Modeste’s early training took place in
the sugar cane patches behind her
house in Couva, a small town in
Trinidad and in Tobago known more for
its candy and confectionary factory than
its track stars. She would also run along
the beach against the tide of the water
to develop stamina.
She became known for her bruising,
training exercises and her penchant for
going head-to-head with much older
runners. So much so, that her team-
mates nicknamed her "Bruiser." Romona
"Bruiser" Modeste sounds about right
for the gutsy junior who ran in the
NCAA track and field championships,
three weeks removed from a torn ham-
string. "Bruiser" was limited to training
on the hurdles for much of the season
due to the hamstring injury.
"[The injury] showed me that I am able
to accomplish anything that I put my
mind to," said Modeste, "and it proves
to me that next season I can see major
improvement because I have more con-
fidence and I will get a boost to run
even faster."
Coach Hodge, who has coached in the
last three Olympics for the Virgin
Islands, calls Modeste
"the number one ath-
lete that I have ever
coached from the
Caribbean." Hodge
also says that Modeste
is equally bruising off the field as she is
on the track.
"[Romona] is a team person. She gets it
done on the track and she carries a 3.0
SUMMER 2005
average in the classroom. I expect big,
big things from her next season," Hodge
said.
And for Hodge, next season starts now
as he is already talking about the poten-
tial for Modeste to be one of the top
female hurdlers in the country. Hodge is
also working now on getting the men
and women's track and field program in
shape during the off-season.
Hodge makes all of his athletes,
MSU Female Athlete of the Year, Ramona Modeste and MSU
Head Coach of the Year, Neville Hodge, have taken Morgan’s
Lady Bears track team to new heights.
sprinters included, run cross country
and he asks some to run with tires
affixed to their waists by way of a
looped rope. He calls it "tire pulling.”
Morgan’s new female stars
may rewrite the book on
Morgan’s brilliant history in
track and field. But it will not
be easy. MSU sent more than
50 athletes to the Olympic
games. Dr. George Rhoden was the first
Morgan State track and field star to go
to the Olympics when he competed at
the 1952 Helsinki games. Rhoden set
the world record in the 400 meter dash
19
and was the anchor leg for the Jamaican
relay team which set a shin-splitting,
new world record of 3:03.9. Rhoden was
also a member of the "Historic Four"
which broke the 56-year-old mile relay
record at the Penn Relays.
"We virtually retired the old CIAA and
MEAC track championships," says Jeff
Evans, administrative assistant in the
Health, Physical Education and Recre-
ational Dance Department. "You're
talking about 10 to 12 years when we
not only won track
championships but
football and lacrosse
championships too. If
we didn't win it every
year, we won it every
other year".
In 1996, Morgan's
Rochelle Stevens, a
native of Memphis, Ten-
nessee, ran on the
women's gold medal
1,600 meter relay team
in Atlanta. She was
joined by her teammate
Phillipa Arnett who won
the silver medal for the
Bahamas in the 4x100
meter relay at those same games.
Coach Hodge, himself a representative
of the U.S.Virgin Islands in the 1984,
1988 and 1992 Olympics, is mindful of
the history of Morgan State's program
when he talks about next season's goals
for his 2005 MEAC championship team.
"Morgan has a record of world-quality
athletes and my motivation is to mold
the track and field team in that tradi-
tion. It's people like Romona who are
going to help me get to that point," said
Coach Hodge.