IMAN BROWN: LEARNING TO GRIND

By Rich Myhre

By Washington Huskies

March 15^th, 2018

As a younger girl, Iman Brown never had to work very hard to win races. Which made her wonder, what’s the point of working hard?

Running fast “has always been second nature for me, ever since I was little,” Brown said. “And when I got the hang of it, I was pretty good. … Winning was easy, so I didn’t feel like I really had to work to do it.”

She had that mindset in the years she ran on a Seattle club team, and later when she attended Seattle’s Garfield High School. Though she ran three of four seasons at Garfield (an injury kept her out her junior year), her heart was never quite in it.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” she admitted. “All my friends had kind of stopped running by then. … I did it because I was good at it and because my parents wanted me to do it, but (in high school) I didn’t really care about it anymore. I really did it just to socialize.”

By the time she graduated from Garfield last spring, a lot of people were unsure how good Brown really was, and also how good she might be if she was steadfast in her training. True, she opened a few eyes with a stellar performance at the Class 3A state track and field championships in May, when she won individual titles in the 200 meters, high jump and long jump, and also was part of Garfield’s winning 4x200m relay team. Still, her perceived lack of dedication -- her indifference, if you will -- had college recruiters looking elsewhere, or so it seemed.

But one man knew her potential. It was Eric Metcalf, a Seattle sprint coach who had known Brown since she was a youngster running on a club team. Metcalf had coached a rival club team back then, but the two became friends and stayed in touch over the years, right up to her high school graduation.

By then Metcalf was an assistant track and field coach at the University of Washington, and he was determined to make her a Husky.

“Even when she was a freshman in high school, I told (UW head coach) Greg Metcalf, ‘I don’t care what you say, she is hands-down the best athlete in the state.’ … I had the history with her and I knew she was a special talent. I knew what type of ability she had and I knew what she could do. Because she could do anything.

“I told Greg, ‘I don’t care what has to happen as far as a scholarship or (other financial aid), but I have to get her.’”

In time, Eric Metcalf convinced his head coach to take a chance. The next step was to convince Brown that she should come to Washington, and that she should also embrace a new regimen of diligence and hard work.

Even into last summer, Eric Metcalf said, “she didn’t work out like I wanted her to. Because in high school she could say, ‘I’ll just show up and run, and nobody can beat me.’ But I told her, ‘Somebody’s going to beat you in college, so I need you to work out.’

“I’ve known her for a long time, so the two of us have a different relationship. I’m able to talk to her (more candidly) than I would other athletes. I just give it to her real. … And I’ve told her, ‘I need you to work out because you’re going to be a superstar. And I need you to believe that you’re going to be a superstar.’”

Evidently, that message is now sinking in. Brown understands that greatness comes at a cost, and that price is paid at each daily workout, whether on the track or in the weight room. The sprint team has morning practices, so she is up most days at 7:30 a.m., which is sometimes a challenge because “I’m not one to go to sleep all that early,” she admitted with a smile.

Once on the track, she has begun pushing herself as never before. Or, more precisely, Eric Metcalf is pushing her as never before.

“You have to learn to love practice here,” Brown said. “You have to learn to love the grind of getting better, because that’s all it really is. It’s working hard every morning. Eric is always like, ‘Get up, you can do it,’ … It’s hard, but after every really hard workout I’m always satisfied with myself. I’m like, ‘I didn’t think I could get through that, and I actually did.’

“And then once you start to win and you start to see all the work pay off, then it’s like, ‘OK, this is what I want to do.’ I’m realizing the work is so worth it in the end because I don’t want to be mediocre. I want to be the best. And the only way to get better is to work hard.

“It hurts when you’re actually doing it, but afterward it’s very satisfying,” she said. “And nowadays if I don’t work out for a day or two I’m going crazy. I need this regimen.”

Brown wasted little time making an impact at Washington. In her first collegiate meet, which was the UW Indoor Preview at Dempsey Indoor on Jan. 13, she ran the 200 meters in 24.20 seconds, the second-fastest women’s indoor time in Husky history. She was even better on Jan. 26, setting a school record with a 23.85 clocking at the UW Invitational, also at Dempsey Indoor.

Her best showing came on Feb. 9 at the Don Kirby Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M., where she bettered her own school mark by running the 200 in 23.51, or 23.58 when adjusted for altitude.

“I’m happy that I broke the record,” Brown said, “but I’m not all big-headed and pumped about it.” The reason, she explained, is that other sprinters in the Pac-12 Conference routinely run that fast, if not faster. Indeed, she pointed out, her 23.58 would not even be in the top 10 of all-time performances at Oregon and USC, which typically have top sprint teams.

So for now, she said, “I just want to get better.” And with the outdoor season soon to begin, “I know I can get a lot faster. I am getting faster, but I still need to get stronger, both with my arm strength and my leg strength. I’m fighting to finish the last 50 meters in the 200, and I know I can get to the point where coming to the finish line is nothing.”

Also in the outdoor season, Brown expects to compete in both the high jump and the long jump. “I like them both,” she said, “but I have lots of work to do (to improve).”

As a freshman, Brown is adjusting to college life in other ways, too. She lives in a UW dormitory, but is close enough to her Seattle home that she can easily visit her family. Academically, she is “just taking the basics this year and seeing what I like … but the opportunities are endless.”

And if she needs words of encouragement, she can always count on fellow Garfield alum and current boyfriend Jaylen Nowell, a standout freshman on the UW men’s basketball team. The two met at Garfield’s freshman orientation four years ago and have been in a relationship for the past three years.

“We motivate each other,” she said. “I always support him and he supports me.”

The big question, of course -- and one Brown has heard a few times before -- is this: Who is faster?

“(Nowell) likes to think he’s faster, and I think he might be because of all the testosterone,” she said, breaking into laughter. “But he won’t race me. He doesn’t want to be beat, so he sticks to basketball.”

She thought for a moment and then added, “Maybe he could beat me in the 100, but I think I could get him in the 200.”

But if a foot race might be a toss-up, Nowell has a decided edge on the basketball court, which has Brown wisely avoiding any one-on-one showdowns. “I stick to rebounding for him,” she said.

As for her athletic future, Brown is still not sure where to set her sights. “I don’t ever try to look too far ahead,” she said, though others seem quite willing to do that for her.

“People always say to me, ‘You can go to the Olympics.’ It’s a stretch and it’s very far off, but I’d love to see if I could get that far.” And it would be a logical outcome if one of her primary goals is realized, which is, she said, “to be the best in the country.”

As her coach, Eric Metcalf is mostly focused on bringing Brown along one day at a time, one race at a time. But he finds it hard not to daydream about what awaits her further down the road.

“I’ve been around a lot of good athletes, including people who won state championships,” he said. “But they’re nothing like her. … (Someday) we’ll see her in the finals at (the NCAA Championships), for sure. She’ll place at the Pac-12 (championships) easy, and she’ll be in the mix (to win). USC and Oregon have great sprinters, and (on race day) it all depends on what they run. But if she gets to the point fitness-wise where those girls are, she’ll be right there. Because she’s not even close to being in the shape those girls are.

“Right now,” he went on, “I think she knows she can run. But she’s still unsure (of her potential). She’s just not where she thinks she needs to be. But once she gets it going in her mind, she’s going to be on a big stage. Because she can run (fast), she can jump high, and she can jump far. And once she understands that she can truly do all these things, then it’s going to be a world-changer for her because she’ll treat it differently.

“She’ll think, ‘I have to be in shape and I have to eat right,’ and she’ll do everything else she needs to do. She’s still not there yet. But once she gets to a point where she knows what it really takes, then she’ll shatter every record here.”