Their races end in a blink, but Gophers sprinters build fast and lasting friendship

They come from both near and far, these three Gophers women's track short sprinters recruited from one Caribbean island and two Midwestern states. Together, they are ranked the Big Ten's best at 60 meters this indoor season.

In snowbound Minnesota, no less.

A three-time Big Ten track athlete of the week this season, graduate student Amira Young set a conference record and broke a 21-year-old school record with a time of 7.19 seconds two weeks ago in Chicago, her hometown.

She is tied for 10th in the 60-meter national rankings and is first in the Big Ten in the 200 meters.

Teammate Akilah Lewis' lifetime-best 7.21 at that same meet is second in the Big Ten this season. She is ranked 16th nationally. Minnesotan Odell Frye's 7.31 last month is the conference's sixth-best time this season. She's 35th nationally.

With the Big Ten indoor championships starting Friday in Geneva, Ohio, the Gophers are seeking their third consecutive conference title. They are ranked sixth nationally as a squad in 60 meters.

"It's a blessing because it doesn't happen very often," Gophers director of men's and women's track and field Matt Bingle said. "It's not normal, I would say."

The Gophers are ranked not far behind traditional sprinter schools such as top-ranked Texas and No. 2 Georgia.

"Minnesota is not your SEC or Pac-12 type of school," Young said. "It's very cold here. It's very rare to have really good sprinters like this here."

Long journey

It's particularly rare if you consider that Young and Lewis say they knew nothing about Minnesota when coaches Bingle or assistant Ibrahim Kabia recruited both to a place neither knew.

Kabia recruited Lewis at the 2018 World Juniors in Finland, in the Cayman Islands and at her home in Trinidad. That's where she joined an after-school track club at age 10 so she and her brother could cut their commute time back home from one side of the island to the other from three hours to 40 minutes.

"I just started doing track to pass the time, honestly," Lewis said, "and then I started to take it seriously."

Lewis did so after making her first junior team in 2016. In the process she started to learn she could see the world and earn a scholarship so her parents — both of whom ran some track — wouldn't have to pay for her college.

She met Bingle at the Pan Am Juniors in Costa Rica and was won over by his personality and recruiting pitch. She followed Young's freshman season at Minnesota from afar, impressed by her improvement.

"I didn't even know Minnesota existed until I was recruited there, to be honest," Lewis said. "I didn't know it was a state."

The year before that, Young leaned toward signing with Illinois, where her father — her track coach growing up — ran track and from which her mother graduated. Looking to leave home for something new, Young signed elsewhere, impressed by Bingle and unafraid of the unknown.

"The only thing I knew about it was that song 'Cold Like Minnesota,'" Young said, referring to rapper Lil Yachty's song. "I could look past being cold and see how Bingle handles his athletes. He really cares about them on and off the track, and that really attracted me."

Cold Like Minnesota isn't much of a recruiting pitch, is it?

"It's not my slogan for sure," Bingle said.

'They need each other'

Frye lived most of her life in Waseca, Minn., after she moved there from Liberia when she was 5. She had once dreamed of running for her home-state university but attended an Iowa community college for two years to get there.

Frye's sister had persuaded her to try track after she first played softball. Frye made Waseca High's varsity track team in ninth grade, became a six-time All America at Iowa Central CC and was recruited by Bingle and his staff her sophomore year there.

"I thought why not, go back home," Frye said. "It was a childhood dream. I cannot go wrong. My family is here and I've got two fast sprinters here."

There also was an opening for a third woman — with Lauren Hansen the fourth — on the Gophers' 4x100 outdoor relay team that set a school record but missed the finals at last June's NCAA Championships in Oregon.

"Practicing together with people just as fast as you makes a huge difference," Frye said. "Now when you go into competitions, you're not tight, you're not scared."

Together, Young, Lewis and Frye have grown with one another through what Lewis calls "competition and accountability" among three sprinters all in their fourth or fifth seasons because of a lost COVID season.

"We've run around that track a lot of times," Lewis said. "We're old seniors."

Young acknowledges their separate backgrounds and upbringings.

"We all come from different places, but that's what makes us unique," she said. "That's what makes us, us."

Lewis is enrolled in the Carlson School of Management, majoring in both finance and industrial relations. Young graduated last spring with a kinesiology degree and is in a graduate certificate program. She is aimed at medical school and wants to be a sports medicine physician.

Lewis has aspirations to run in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Young hopes to run in the U.S. championships in July. Odell said she's working hard at track "and we'll see where that leads."

Until then, they'll have the fleeting rest of the indoor season and spring's outdoor season together.

"They genuinely love each other," Bingle said. "They take care of each other. They're happy for each other. So it makes it easier for me to coach because sometimes it's not that way when you've got three superstar athletes in the same event. Not with these guys. They need each other. They know that."