Ivy League Sports

In the late 1980s Harvard benefited from a particularly talented runner named Meredith Rainey, who won the 800-meter outdoor NCAA championship in 1989 and the indoor championship in 1990. Yet, as coach Frank Haggerty recalls, Rainey’s stellar career had a rather unpromising beginning:

She never ran track in high school, [and] I almost did not let her come out for the team. She came down with a friend of hers who was on the team and introduced me to Meredith. . . . So we chatted a bit and I said, “You know that we have started six weeks ago, Meredith: you are a little late. How come you are coming down late?” She said, “Well, I did not know I wanted to try this. . . . I just want to be on a team and I think it will be fun and just want to try to help out the team.”

[After learning she had not run in high school,] I said, “Do you have any idea at all what events you want to try?” “Oh, I want to try the 400,” [she said,] and I was flabbergasted at how fast and decisive she was. I thought, how does she know? Does she know what she is getting into with this tough event? I said, “Meredith, how do you know that is what you want to do?” She said, “That is what I used to run.” I said, “Wait a minute, I thought you told me that you did not run in high school.” She said, “No, I did not. I played volleyball and basketball. . . . [but] I used to run in fifth or sixth grade.” And once again I thought to myself, well big deal.

I said, “Do you happen to remember how fast you ran?” “Oh yeah, I ran 60 flat.” … At that time, I think that 59.3 was our school record. I thought if this girl at twelve years old can run 60 flat, hmm.

I said, “Look, you have to get a physical, sign these various forms, and so on and so forth, and come down and we will get you some equipment.” My famous words were “We will take a look at you for a couple of weeks and we will make a determination whether it is worth your while to be out here.

I would not want you or anybody else to beat your head against the wall if this sport’s not for you.” [She replied,] “Thanks, thank you very much, I just want a chance.”

So she did the paperwork, came down, and got the stuff, and I am not kidding you the very first time I saw her jog I knew she was special. . . . Throughout that year, every successive time that she ran, she ran faster — which is phenomenal. No matter what the meet, whether a small meet or whatever. It ended up that she won Indoor Heptagonals, Outdoor Heptagonals, and … at the end of her freshman year she ran 53.93 [in the 400 and] qualified for the NCAA.

While Rainey excelled in the 400, she often ran and won races of other distances. In the Heptagonal outdoor championship her senior year, Rainey was third in the 100 and second in the 200; won the 400 with a 51.56, then the fastest collegiate time in the country; won the 800; and anchored Harvard’s winning 4x100-meter relay and 4x400-meter relay which came in second. Now Meredith Rainey Valmon, she won the U.S. National Championship twice, is a two-time Olympian, and plans to run in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.