No Memo for Williams

NORMAN, Okla. -- A Division I collegiate track and field runner should not be able to step away from running for more than a year and still plan on competing at a high level. A woman who has carried a child for nine months faces a similar challenge if she decides to return to competition. Put the two together and it would be very hard to expect that this athlete would be able to return as a distance runner and succeed after just eight months. Molly Williams never got the memo.

In late May 2013, Williams and her husband, former OU track star Kevin Williams, welcomed Tommy, their beautiful baby boy into the world. On Jan. 18, 2014, Williams won the mile run at the Sooner Opener.Since her season-opening win, she has added another title in the mile and is just .09 seconds from a career best in that event. She has already cut 10 seconds off her previous career best in the 3,000.

After running for the Sooners from 2010-12, Williams stepped away from the team and took a medical redshirt for what would have been her senior season.

“It was pretty frustrating being away from track for a year,” Williams explained. “For that time, my focus was not really on running any more, but I really missed it. It was tough seeing my teammates competing and knowing that I could not do it.”

Many athletes would take starting a family as a time to step away from track and field for good, but Williams has never been an athlete of convention. When she came to the University of Oklahoma as a freshman, the fourth person in her family to attend OU, Williams was not even on the track and field roster.

"Halfway through my freshman year I decided I wanted to pursue running collegiately,” said the Oklahoma native. “I heard the women's team was in need of runners so I went to talk with the distance coach at the time. He brushed me to the side and put me in the runners club for recreational running.That is not what I wanted.”

After all, Williams was a two-time state champion on the track at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma City. She had won one individual state cross country title and had helped lead the cross country team to four state titles and the track and field team to a state championship.

Through persistence and drive, Williams was on the roster in fall 2009. That same drive and persistence would come in handy four years later while she was training her for her comeback.

“My time off from running started a fire inside of me,” said Williams. “I wanted really badly to try again. I had a break from it, and then I realized just how much I missed it.

“It was difficult at first,” Williams admitted. “I would do short runs and I was really slow. It would burn. It was pretty disheartening from where I had been to where I was at that time and how much work I had to do.”

For Williams, the hard work would eventually pay off. What seems like a short time for most felt like an eternity to her.

"I was definitely inspired,” Williams said. “It was a slow process, but I used last fall to get back into shape. It was around November when I finally started running about 50 to 60 miles a week. I had about a month of that type of running before I came back in January.”

When Williams came back to the team for the 2014 season, the program was not exactly how she had left it. While she was away, Jim VanHootegem had been named the Sooners' head track and field coach and he had brought an almost completely new coaching staff with him.

"Coming back, it was a whole lot different than it used to be,” Williams explained. “I was kind of nervous because I did not know what to expect. Everyone has been extremely welcoming and very excited that I am here.

“It has all been great. I have enjoyed the new coaching staff a lot and they have been very supportive.”

VanHootegem and distance coach Jason Dunn are thrilled about having an experienced Williams lead a team of very young distance runners.

“Molly competes incredibly well and I hope others on our team are watching and can follow her example,” said VanHootegem following Williams' victory in the mile at the Texas A&M Invitational earlier this month.

“Molly Williams has been a standout all season,” Dunn said. “She has done great. She is making really good progress and it is great having her on the team this spring.

“Over the fall, she did a lot of work on her own. She has made a lot of progress since then. Still, it is safe to say she has been able to accomplish a lot of what she has this year due to the hard work she put in on her own.”

Since her return to the team in January, Williams has had a career year, posting two victories in the mile run event and lowering her PR in the 3,000-meter run to 9:37.72 while competing in the Armory Collegiate Invitational in New York City. That time is the 10th best in the Big 12 heading into the league championship this weekend. Incredibly, she has done all of this while beginning work on a master's degree in administrative leadership after graduating last May with a degree in human resources management from the Price College of Business. Her 3.86 GPA earned her a degree with special distinction.

As the track and field team heads to Ames, Iowa, to compete in the Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships this weekend, Molly Williams is still not paying attention to things people should not be able to do and she still hasn't gotten that memo. Her coaches and teammates are glad she hasn't.

Written by Andrew McCracken, OU Athletics Communications student intern.