A Fearless Competitor

Patricia Melton was more than just a talented athlete. She has been a hard worker since day one while always maintaining a high level of resilience and fearlessness. Patricia Melton exemplifies the notion that you can do anything if you have the right attitude as she earned the honor of being noted as one of the best track and field stars at Yale University, became a top competitor in the Ivy League, then a finalist at the meet to determine the 1988 Olympic team.

Patricia Melton, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, has always had a love for sports. In grammar school, gym was one her favorite times of the day. Any sport was fun for Melton. Unfortunately, the high school Patricia attended in her freshman year was below the standard of what she and her fellow peers needed. Funding became a limitation for athletics at her high school. Only a small amount of sports were available to her. However, Melton was fortunate to receive an A Better Chance Scholarship which allowed her to attend Middlesex Prep School in her sophomore year. Middlesex, located in Concord, Mass., would provide all of the things her hometown secondary school couldn't. At Middlesex, all of the students participated in sports in addition to a strong academic regiment. It was in prep school that Melton found a connection with the field hockey and lacrosse coach Dale Philippi.

"Where I had went to school in Cleveland, I had never seen a field hockey or lacrosse stick," remembers Melton. Patricia credits Dale with sparking the loving relationship she would develop with the sports of lacrosse and field hockey. "I remember going home from Middlesex with this lacrosse stick to urban Cleveland and I just decided that I was going to learn this game. When I got home, I didn't know how to cradle the ball or anything. But all I did the entire time was practice with the ball and the lacrosse stick. By the time I went back, I had gotten it." The skill Patricia worked so hard to master, combined with her speed made her an outstanding player. Her aggressiveness made her even better. At the time of her high school graduation, she was considered heavily for the senior athlete award but was edged out by a teammate. Melton was heart broken but not discouraged. She knew she had worked hard to get to where she was and she would eventually be rewarded for her focus and determination.

Melton was recruited heavily by Brown and Yale to play both field hockey and lacrosse. Her high school coach that introduced her to the sports was then the head coach at Brown. Patricia chose Yale University.

Melton's freshman fall would be the start of her spectacular athletic career. But it would not be in the sports she had initially intended to play. Her field hockey coach chose to change her position on the field and put her in the goal. The goalie position became unfamiliar territory for Melton and also hindered her ability to use the skills she had worked so hard to maintain. But Melton found the sport of track and field. She found that she had a better opportunity for success as a runner. She knew that whatever amount of effort she put forth, the results were almost guaranteed. And yes, she was right.

Melton would place second in the 100 meters in her first outdoor Heptagonal Championship (HEPS) in 1977 as a freshman. Her coach was Lee Calhoun, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the hurdles. Under Calhoun's guidance, Patricia flourished as a sprinter. After her first year at Yale, Melton took a year off and went home. She consistently had to deal with personal issues that pulled her in many directions. When she returned to New Haven in 1979, she discovered her brother had been murdered back home the day she registered for classes. She found that the coach that had given her the opportunity to join his track team had left the university. Patricia was devastated, but, yet, she prevailed.

After a troubled year, that summer Melton enlisted in the Marine Corps for three months. "I thought it would help me to develop discipline. It was actually one of the hardest things I have ever done. They really break you down. It was an incredible mental challenge. Yet, it was an experience that made me stronger." Melton credits athletics for being the anchor that helped her get through the times during her college years.

Melton returned for the start of her junior year. Her new track coach would be Mark Young, the present head track and field and cross country coach at Yale. Melton would, at first, be skeptical of Coach Young, but it would not last long. "Mark Young is a really great guy. Just incredible. I owe a lot, just so much of my even sticking to Yale, to track, and what I achieved, absolutely to him." Mark Young would turn around the women's track and field program at Yale. He became the forerunner in creating a program on par with that of the men's team. "That made a huge difference for us. We were really blessed." Patricia became the Indoor Heps champion in the 55 meters and 200 meters in 1981. She would place second in the 100 meters and 400 meter hurdles in the Outdoor Heptagonal Championship Meet.

Her senior year would be her best. The team captain broke the Indoor Heps record for the 55 meters and the 200 meters, earning her Outstanding Performer of the Meet honors. In the Outdoor Championship, she claimed first in both the 100 and 200 meters. Melton, a great sprinter, would reach the national ranks in an event she had only run about 10 times&emdash; the 400 meter hurdles. "I was really a sprinter. Then Mark said one day "why don't you try these 400 meter hurdles because you're one of our best athletes and you could win the event." I ran the hurdles in like a 62. And a 62 was pretty good. And so he said that we have found your event&emdash;the event where you could compete at a national level, not just the Ivy League. I would sprint, do relays, jump, everything for the entire season. Then at the end I would run a race to qualify for the hurdles." Her junior year, she ran three races and qualified for nationals. The next year, Patricia propelled the Yale women to national prominence by winning a silver in the 400-meter hurdles at the AIAW (now NCAA) Championships. For her success and commitment to her sport, Patricia would garner the Nellie Elliot Outstanding Senior Athlete award, a prize that had eluded her in her senior year of high school.

After Patricia graduated from Yale she became a professional track athlete, or a "poor amateur", in her own words. She struggled to find the proper training facilities, while also struggling to find the funds to compete at many national events. She switched her event to the 800 meters, an event she had not run competitively, to compensate for the issues with weather and facilities in competing in the hurdles. She worked with the Yale track team as an assistant while training and coaching herself in her own career. Racing only during the national competition time, Melton still managed to qualify for the finals for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. "People were like, who is she. They had not seen me compete because I didn't run a lot of races. And I looked around at the people in the race and I said, they're still in college, this one has a husband supporting her. I was really the only one out there just kind of struggling along. I think what I accomplished was really incredible.

After Melton retired, she got a job as an assistant vice president for sports for the Goodwill Games. “It was a great job but I had really had it with sports by then. I didn’t want to be an athletic director or a coach. I was just an athlete.” She began to explore and eventually found her home in education. After feeling like she had drifted somewhat during college, she re-established a connection with education. “I found that I really, really enjoyed working with urban students, students similar to myself. Students who are the first to go to college in their family and where financial aid is a huge issue.” After she began working in that area, every position she had thereafter was related to education and diversity in some way. “I’ve decided that the place for me is K-12 education, in particular charter schools. Now I am very clear about what I want to do. I want to start charter schools in urban areas all over the country.” Patricia Melton-Johnson, who was also named to the Ivy League Silver Anniversary Team in 1999, is currently working as the Chief of Research and Evaluation at the City on a Hill Charter School in Massachusetts. She is adamant about providing support and guidance to today’s youth. “Education is really the place to impact whole communities,” says Melton.

-- Sherryta Freeman

***Please note, this story was written for a previous Ivy League Black History Month celebration. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and has not been updated.***