Becca DeLoache's Georgetown Experience

My Georgetown Experience:

I am not a blogger. I am not active on social media. However, I am a person founded on truth. I will not stay silent as I listen to other people make destructive and false claims about something that I love dearly, the Georgetown Track Program. I will not stay silent as I read comments made in news articles, websites, and blogs made by people that know absolutely NOTHING about our team. Again, let me reiterate that I would be the LAST person to write a blog. Furthermore, I would be the LAST person to come against the people making these negative claims because I truly saw them as my friends and teammates that I deeply cared about. However, I REFUSE to let the hearsay and personal vendettas go unmatched with the truth. There are two sides to every story and I think it is time that you hear mine.

I will first take you back to my senior year of high school when I was choosing what college to attend. I looked at a plethora of schools with amazing facilities and great academics. But when it came time to make a decision, I chose a school based on something different, something stronger. I chose the school that was composed of a great coaching staff and a team founded on a culture and a family that I wanted to be a part of. This school I can say with pride, was Georgetown.

As a recent alum of the Georgetown Track and Field Team, I look back on the decision I made over five years ago and I KNOW that I made the right choice. The gut feeling that I had about the Georgetown team culture and coaches was spot on. Now what is that culture you may ask?

We have a culture built on trust and mutual respect. We may not have a 400 meter track, a dazzling weight room, or an above par training room, but we have something better. We have a bond that most teams do not have. We have a team culture that builds each other up strengthening and pushing us to be the best runners we can be. Every day at practice we can look to the left and to the right and know that we can say, "I've got your back, and you've got mine." Building a positive culture starts with strong leadership. This is what we have on the Georgetown track team, a coaching staff that deeply cares about each athlete and is willing to do whatever it takes to help him or her succeed both on and off the track.

What I have been reading recently in blogs and news articles is not the Georgetown culture I know. I am not saying that racism does not exist in our country or at Georgetown, because it most certainly does. BUT it is not present within our team or coaching staff. The fact that there are scandalous blogs and news articles in the first place is NOT the Georgetown team I know. I am a middle distance runner that is proud of the fact that I was able to participate in workouts and races with both the sprinters and the distance runners. I have come to call all athletes, both sprinters and distance runners, not only my teammates, but my friends. I would hope that if ANY friend or teammate felt mistreated or offended, they would come to me and my other teammates so that we could find a resolution. That would make our team even stronger! This kind of culture should not stop with my teammates and me, but should and does extend to the coaching staff. Head coach, Patrick Henner, and my direct coach, Mike Smith, greatly encourage athletes to voice any problems or concerns with them. They want our feedback. Now, THAT is a healthy culture built on mutual respect and trust.

What is happening in the news right now, that is not Georgetown. I can tell you that the majority of the Georgetown team had no idea that any of the athletes now voicing complaints had issues until we were suddenly under investigation and they decided to take it public. What happened to this whole, "I've got your back, you've got mine," kind of culture? Instead of bringing concerns to the team and coaches they immediately ran to administration. Not only did they not express their concerns, but also they became internal spies within our team scrounging for any misstep or mistake we made so they could further their own agendas and use it against our program and our coaches. Now, THAT, is NOT the Georgetown I have come to know and love. So let me tell you my story and why I have taken to social media and become so adamant about defending my team and my coaches.

I have been plagued with injuries throughout my college career. Let me first stress that I nor any of my teammates have ever been forced to run through an injury. Injuries are not caused solely from overtraining; they come with the nature of the sport with increased incidents at Georgetown due to an understaffed training room. With a surgery on my Achilles that kept me out for over a year and a half, I came back out of shape and discouraged. I easily could have given up on my running and taken the easy way out by saying that it was because I did not get my shoes in time or because I had to run on a 320-meter track.  But instead, I took ownership of my running and knew that I could become the runner I used to be, despite my missed training and lack of equipment and facilities, as long as I put in the hard work and effort required. I LOVE to run, it is my passion, and so giving up was never an option. That does not mean the road to recovery was any easier.  It was not only embarrassing, but also heartbreaking to continually run 10 seconds slower than my PR in the 800. But when times got tough, my coaches and my teammates built me back up each and every time. My coaches had every reason to take my scholarship and replace me with someone who could score points at the national meet, but instead, they supported me and encouraged me throughout my entire comeback process. I will never forget Coach Henner calling me into his office after my dreadful 800 meter run at the Big East Conference meet my junior year. I was so afraid he was going to be disappointed and angry, but he was quite the opposite. He wasn't concerned about my time or place, but instead about my well-being. He wanted to make sure that I was ok because he knew how hard this was on me and he wanted me to know that with time I would reach my goals. He was right, and it was his support that helped me to become an All-American two years later. Now let me tell you about Mike Smith. He is the most amazing coach you will come across in the NCAA. He is not the typical "college" coach. He does not operate under a cutthroat business, even though others may think he should. Throughout my injuries, I was never sidelined. Instead I was in his office even more as he continued to fill me with pep talks and teach me life lessons along the way. He has an open door policy with each of us and spends more hours talking to us about life than he does about running. He wants us to develop and grow as women first and foremost. This is a coach that deeply cares about each of his athletes. He is the coach that slept overnight in the hospital when a teammate was in the ICU. This is the coach that has helped athletes through more personal and family issues than I could count. Coach Mike is a coach that wants the best for us and wants us to do what makes us happy and for most of us, that is running. So when he asks us to take a break from the team and not come to practice, that is not him setting us up for failure or kicking us off the team. That is him telling us to take a mental and emotional break to decide if running and being on the team is what truly makes us happy. Most other coaches might choose a harsher method and say, run this time and hit this mark, or your scholarship and place on the team are gone.

Now here is the catch, my teammates and coaches supported me so strongly because they knew that I supported them in the exact same way. This is the give and take and mutual respect that I keep referring to within our culture. I am treated well by my coaches and my team not because of the color of my skin, but instead because of the way I treat them and this program. 

It is because of my love for the sport and my team as well as my strong work ethic that I continued to receive support during my final season this past spring as I suffered from a stress reaction. Because of this, I will continue to chase my running dreams under the incredible coaching of Mike Smith, crediting all success to the Georgetown Track Program.

To all former, current, and future Track Hoyas: We will not let these allegations define us. We will not let this bring us down or take away from who we are. I will continue to support this team, my coaches, and this program. I will not let a few individuals' experiences and allegations tear down a program filled with so much history and pride from the countless alums and current athletes. I am deeply saddened this blog is even necessary, but WE are no longer going to stay silent. WE are going to give you the other side of the story.

WE ARE GEORGETOWN.

HOYA SAXA.