Every once in a while, Alysha Adams ponders what her life would be like if she hadn’t taken a risk by lacing up her track spikes for what could have been the final time earlier this year.

Alysha Adams

Adams was a star athlete at Houston Westside and had scholarship offers to play volleyball or basketball at junior colleges and Division II schools her senior year and even picked up a couple of Division I track offers after a standout performance in summer track nearly a year ago.

Adams passed those opportunities because she wanted to go to North Texas, where she decided to try to walk on to the Mean Green’s track team in the fall.

That decision is paying off for UNT and Adams heading into the Sun Belt Conference track meet that is set to begin Friday at Fouts Field. Adams enters the meet with the second-best time in the conference in the 100-meter hurdles at 13.53 seconds.

“Houston, UT-Arlington and Sam Houston offered me in track, but not until August after summer track,” Adams said. “By then I had already been to orientation and had a dorm room at North Texas, so I decided to come here. I knew I was going to walk on, it was just a matter of finding out how.”

UNT has a tryout for walk-ons each year. Adams showed up and told UNT’s hurdles coach Sammy Dabbs that she didn’t think she would ever lace up her spikes again.

Once the Mean Green’s coaches saw what Adams had to offer, they were not about to let her entertain another thought of being just a regular student.

“I told her that she had the potential to do something big in track,” Dabbs said. “I thought she could run a 13.8 and now she has run a 13.5. I don’t know how fast she can go.”

UNT’s coaches met after the tryout and decided to offer Adams a spot on the team. UNT assistant Laurie McElroy called a few days later to extend the offer.

“Coach Mac called and said she had some good news and some bad news and asked which I wanted to hear first,” Adams said. “I said the bad news and she told me that I would have to keep on practicing with her. So I asked her what the good news was. That’s when she told me that she wanted me to be a part of the team.”

Adams has been on a tear ever since. The Sun Belt Conference named her the Freshman of the Year at its indoor championships after she finished third in the 55-meter hurdles and qualified for the finals of the 55-meter dash.

Adams credited her rapid improvement in large part to Dabbs, the first coach she has ever worked with who specializes in coaching hurdlers. Adams didn’t begin competing in the hurdles until her senior year in high school and has improved rapidly.

The addition of Adams gives UNT one of the best duos in a single event heading into the Sun Belt meet.

Senior Lauren Wiggins has the top time in the Sun Belt in the 100-meter hurdles at 13.52 seconds and is coming off a 14th-place finish in the 60-meter hurdles at the NCAA Indoor Nationals. Both Wiggins and Adams are ranked among the top-10 100-meter hurdlers in the NCAA’s Midwest Region.

“It has been good to have someone to push me,” Wiggins said. “I never had that before. It has helped me to run faster. The coaches told me Alysha was going to be pretty fast, so I expected it. I think we can both make the finals at regionals and maybe go to nationals together.”

UNT head coach Rick Watkins credited Adams’ improvement to the determination she has shown early in her career and the competition she has fostered with Wiggins.

“It helps to have someone to train with who is on the same level,” Watkins said. “It makes you work hard.”

UNT expects to see the fruits of that effort in the preliminary rounds of the running events Saturday and the finals on Sunday night, when Wiggins and Adams are expected to sweep the 100-meter hurdles.

Being in position to help sweep an event at the conference meet is just one of the reasons Adams is happy she made the decision to walk on at UNT. Watkins said Adams could receive a scholarship next season.

“I am happy I decided to try out,” Adams said. “And so is my mom.” 

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com .