GARDNER DIGS DEEP
Junior star carries women's track team to new heights
For several years now, women's track team coach Sherman Hart has been making the long drive to Syracuse, New York, for the annual high school indoor track-and-field national championships. Six years ago, Dion Gardner, then a high school freshman in Troy, New York, caught his eye. Hart's dedication paid off when Gardner committed to Northeastern. She's been leading the Huskies and leaving opponents behind ever since.
"Dion's a very special person and athlete," says Hart, in his eighth year as the women's track coach. "She runs five events for us, and basically, I put the team on her back and said 'carry us,' and she did." The result for the team has been remarkable. Northeastern captured the women's indoor titles last year in both the North Atlantic Conference (now America East) and the New England championships. The Huskies have established themselves as one of the top programs in the region, having placed tenth out of eighty schools at last year's Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) megameet of all East Coast college teams. Gardner was named team MVP for the 199596 season.
Now in her third year under Hart, Gardner is excelling in several events: the 55-meter dash, the 100 and 200 meters, the 1,600 relay, the triple jump, and the long jump. Her top event is the long jump, which she won at the New England indoor championships in 1996. She credits the coaching staff and Keith McDermott, in particular, for her development as a long jumper. McDermott, the university's community relations director, has coached N.U.'s team and athletes from other eastern universities.
"I love the long jump," says Gardner, who holds the N.U. indoor record of twenty feet three inches, which is also her personal best. "I have learned so much about it since I came here three years ago. Because of Keith, I have read more about the event and now understand the importance of weight training and specific drills for the long jump. When I started, I was just a little girl running down the runway and jumping."
McDermott, who has coached nationally ranked long jumpers, calls Gardner "the most talented athlete I've ever had. It's a credit to her, though, that's she's willing to work on developing the fundamental skills. For someone like her who can just run down there and jump, it's easy to rely on your talent to get you to a certain level, but then it's hard to go beyond that. But she's highly disciplined, so she's going to get better." McDermott already views Gardner as one of the best of the current American long jumpers.
Track first interested Gardner as a girl, when she found she could beat all the neighborhood boys with her speed. Her interest grew when her cousin, Lolitta Hill, won New York state meets. Gardner watched closely and began thinking about a career of her own. "She was so good, always winning trophies and awards," Gardner says. "Lolitta more than anyone is responsible for me getting involved in track." Gardner entered her first organized track meet in eighth grade. After finishing fourth in the long jump and triple jump in the state high school championship, she realized she had a special gift worth pursuing.
The track isn't the only place where she hopes to excel. She plans to major in communications and minor in criminal justice and then go to law school. "I love to talk and I always wanted to be a lawyer when I was growing up," says Gardner, a member of the class of '99.
Hart agrees that Gardner "never stops talking. But that's not a bad thing. She's the leader and leaders need to communicate with the others. That's one of the things that makes her successful off the field." Gardner adds, "Most people think of track as an individual sport, but it really is very team-oriented. There is a lot of pulling for one another and talking among the team. It's more mental stress than physical."
Northeastern has become a perennial heavyweight in women's track. In 1992, three Huskies were ranked among the top twenty nationally. "That was unprecedented," says McDermott. Hart attributes a large share of this success to recruiting. He and his staff have tapped high schools from Maine to Pennsylvania, seeking student-athletes that fit N.U.'s mold. "We try to find very coachable and dedicated athletes who get along well with the people around them. Dion certainly fits into that category," Hart says.
The 1997 team will have to rely on several new faces if it is to remain the conference champion. But Hart is hopeful, particularly after freshman Andrea Clark's impressive debut. "She's the heir apparent," he says. "We saw her do all the things that Dion did in high school. If we get the same kind of results here that we have gotten from Dion, teams are going to have a hard time beating us."
- Paul Perillo
Football
HUSKY LINEMEN DRAW NFL DRAFT INTEREST
They don't get the headlines. They're not the big men on campus-unless you're measuring their neck sizes. They seem to find the spotlight only when helping their quarterback to his feet after an opponent has slipped past them and buried their teammate.
Yet they're the same players who just might find themselves receiving telephone calls from National Football League teams on draft day, April 19. Remember their names: Jerome Daniels and Brian Chamberlain. After stellar football careers with the Huskies, the pair of behemoth seniors on Northeastern's offensive line have a better-than-average chance of playing football next season at the next level. "There's no question that they both can succeed in the NFL in the right situation," says N.U. football coach and athletics director Barry Gallup, who led the Huskies to six wins and five losses in 1996, their first winning record since 1987. "Jerome has immense size and speed and Brian is a hard-working, tough football player."
At six feet six inches and 336 pounds, Daniels is surprisingly fast. In fact, he first went out for track rather than football at Bloomfield High School near Hartford, Connecticut. Football conflicted with the church schedule of his mother, a Jehovah's Witness. But the track coach was also the football coach, and he pressed Daniels to play football during his senior year. "My coach told me that if I played I could probably earn a college scholarship," says Daniels, an English major who will graduate in June. "Once my mother heard that, we all agreed that it would be the best thing for me to do."
Chamberlain, who at six-five and 301 pounds refers to himself as "the small one," enjoyed a stellar high school career at Rockland High School in Rockland, Massachusetts. He captained the football and track teams and was a standout hockey player. Despite his schoolboy success, though, he was surprised that he was able to step into the Huskies' lineup. "I never thought I'd be able to play when I first got here," says Chamberlain, a criminal justice major. "There were so many guys my size, I thought I'd be just another guy. I was used to pushing smaller defenders around. After a while, I realized that I could play with these guys too."
NFL scouts have taken notice. Representatives from just about every team have been at practices and games throughout the season, Gallup says. He believes that with dedication and luck, Chamberlain and Daniels can join Sean Jones, BA'85 (a defensive lineman with the Green Bay Packers), as N.U. graduates in the NFL. "Making it can depend on so many things," says Gallup. "One scout asked me if either of them could long-snap. Brian has done a lot of that, but that's just an example of how you can make it. If they do well at the scouting combine, they probably have a good chance of being drafted."
- Paul Perillo
