Making a Difference with the Journey

NORMAN -- Every senior faces a season of lasts, but for three seniors on the Oklahoma track and field team, it is the journey that has made all the difference.

After two years of competing at the University of Oklahoma, seniors Erin Jones, Alex Deir and Abbabiya Simbassa will run their last Indoor Big 12 Championship on Friday and Saturday. Though this is the last leg of the indoor race, all three have a common starting line in the state of Iowa. However, their journeys to Oklahoma differ vastly.

Deir and Simbassa both came to Oklahoma from Iowa Central Community College where they had been teammates for a year. Deir says when they first met, they hit it off and have been training partners ever since.

During their sophomore years at Iowa Central, Oklahoma coaches began to recruit both Simbassa and Deir.

“When we first started getting talked to by OU, it was extra special because we could both end up at the same place and stay in touch,” Deir said. “Even though we did commit at separate times, we always had it in the back of our heads that we would remain teammates.”

For Simbassa, being able to transfer with a teammate was more than special. It helped him cope with the process of going to a new and bigger school.

“To move somewhere you don't know a lot of people is a challenge,” Simbassa said. “Having a teammate (transfer) with me helped me to be a better person.”

Now after being at OU, the two have found their niche. Deir said that with it being his second year at OU and his last year in college, he's used to the system and is familiar with the team and coaches.

“I just feel really blessed to be a part of the program,” Deir said. “Coming out of Iowa Central, there weren't too many other schools that were looking at me. The school and the team in general believed there was a little bit of potential there.”

Jones' story is quite different from Deir and Simbassas's. Jones got her start at the University of Iowa, but quickly decided that was not the place for her. She felt she wasn't getting the experience she wanted and her performance on the track was not what she had been hoping for.

However, once Jones decided to leave, she had to fight tooth and nail to come to Oklahoma. Coaches and teammates kept telling her not to leave and at first Iowa wouldn't grant her release.

“My dad was the only one in my corner,” Jones said.

Once her release was sent, Oklahoma coaches began to recruit her. Jones said she liked the warmer weather, the facilities and the added benefit of being close but not too close to her hometown of Flower Mound, Texas.

After her visit, her mind was made up and she made the transfer. Almost immediately, she started showing improved times in the 60-, 100-and 200-meter dashes.

Not long after she transferred, though, Jones encountered another bump in the road. The University of Oklahoma hired an almost completely new coaching staff for track and field and the coach who had recruited her would no longer be her coach.

“When I first found out my coach was leaving, I cried,” Jones said. “He was more like a father figure to me than a coach. I was very excited when I saw Coach (Kevin) Tyler would be my new coach.”

Everything was going well until her second year at OU came around. Jones found out that the left side of pelvis was tilted forward because of how she stands, walks, and runs. That reality prevented her from running as fast as she could.

What came next was something Jones did not expect. She was given the option to redshirt her second year at OU in order to nurse her leg back to health.

“I feel like no other school would have let me fix my body,” Jones said. “I feel like they would have just put me out there and said 'Get points for the team.'”

With the 2015 Big 12 Indoor Championships on Friday and Saturday, Jones' body is healed and ready to compete. Her career-best time in the 200, a 23.96 recorded earlier this season, ranks ninth in the Big 12 and is the ninth best time in OU history. She also ranks on the OU career list in the 60-meter dash with a 7.43, a mark she ran in 2013. She says she just wants to go out with a bang.

As for Deir and Simbassa, they just hope to show their appreciation to the school that gave them a chance and to leave a legacy for Sooners to come. Both have marks on the OU career list and Deir was a part of the Big 12 champion distance medley relay in 2014.

Different journeys to the same spot and indoor careers coming to an end – it's the reality of being a senior in collegiate sports. And for this trio, a strong performance in Ames as part of the Big 12 Championships guarantees a special ending to that journey that led them to OU.

By Candace Hinnergardt, Athletics Communications Student Intern