Pasadena City's Omhunique Browne doubles up at state meet
PASADENA - This time, Omhunique Browne's decision to rest is under her own terms.
After a forced year off because of a stress fracture, she returned to track and field competition by becoming the first Pasadena City College female athlete to win two CCCAA state titles in the same meet last weekend.
She won the 100 and 200 meters at College of San Mateo and set two school records this season. She was also named the South Coast Conference female track and field athlete of the year.
Just as quickly as she returned to competition though, she is tentatively planning on taking next year off.
"I want to focus on school," she said. "I understand that at four-year schools I will be a student/athlete and right now I want to focus on school. I love track, but school is a priority.
"It will be hard, but I'm sacrificing for something bigger and better."
It's a move that could be hard to fathom for an athlete who was so eager to get back on synthetic track surfaces after suffering a stress fracture in her pelvis during her senior year at San Marino High School.
"It was not the senior year she wanted, so she was eager to get out there to show what she had," Pasadena coach Larry Wade said. "I was constantly pulling her back. Her desire to win is extreme. As long as she take it one step at a time and is not be overzealous, not only will she have a successful career, but a long career."
The 18-year-old suffered the fracture at the beginning of her 2012 season, thinking it was a chronic hamstring injury. The previous season, her junior year, she reached the CIF State meet in the hurdles and was named the Pasadena Star-News Track and Field Athlete of the Year. She tried competing her senior year, but was unable to run in CIF-Southern Section postseason competition. If she had gone on, she faced possible surgery, doctors told her.
"I cried," she recalled. "It was hard not being able to go back to State again.
"I don't like to think about it because it was my worst season. But now how I look at it, I was happy I took time off. It was the best freshman year."
Wade limited the hurdler/long jumper to three events and none could involve jumping. In addition to the 100 and 200, she ran on the 4x100 team, which finished third in the CCCAA meet, and the 4x400 in the state meet.
Nearly every time she raced this year, she set a personal best. She won her first 100 race from Lane 1, running an 11.63. She eventually ran an 11.30 at the conference meet, the fastest community college time in the nation and a school record. She won the state title with an 11.34.
She did practically the same thing in the 200. She went into the 23s for the first time, running a 23.77 at the Pasadena Games. She won the conference title with a nation-leading and school record 23.46 and the state title with a 23.97.
"She is so versatile," Wade said. "I tell people she's a hurdler, not a sprinter. They say, `What?' She's actually a hurdler that can sprint."
Wade compared her to one of his first athletes he began coaching, Olympic gold medalist Carmelita Jeter.
"Fortunately for me, I got the opportunity to get to know her and she decided to trust me and come to PCC. It's been a blessing ever since," he said.
Browne said the key race wasn't that first 100, run at Cal State Fullerton, but running against the pros in the 200 at Pasadena.
"I had coach Wade's pro athlete (Aareon Payne) pushing me," she said. "If it was not for her, I would not have gotten into the 23s."
Payne outleaned Browne at the finish for the win.
"From that point on, her confidence went through the roof," Wade said.
Browne will compete in a June 8 meet and then plans on training and her studies. She said she will also resume hurdles training.
"There are not a lot of athletes like her," Wade said. "She definitely has the opportunity to follow in the shoes of some big athletes. As long as she stays patient and matures, she has the opportunity for a very, very, very bright future."
That will not include potential opportunities with U.S. teams in international competition. Browne, who was born in Pasadena, said she will compete for St. Kitts and Nevis, the Caribbean birthplace of her father.
"I always dreamed that I might represent where my dad's from, so that is what I will want to do," she said. "My goal is to be like Allyson Felix some day. I do not want that to be the same team and have that kind of pressure."
Wade said that Browne may be the best female track and field athlete in school history. Only five other PCC athletes have previously won state titles.
keith.lair@sgvn.com 626-544-0856