“I am happy to be the interim head coach at Winston-Salem State University [WSSU], and I really enjoy working with the athletes,” declared Inez Turner, who recently took over at the helm. “As a former athlete, I can definitely relate to my athletes. I have been here since May and I already see vast improvement. We are currently doing cross-country and every week we have 10 to 12 athletes doing PBs (personal bests).”
Two weekends ago, October 15, the WSSU teams won both the men’s and women’s 2010 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Cross Country titles – a first for the school.
The very passionate Turner is no stranger to the world of track & field and is quite comfortable coaching the athletes. The 38-year-old mother of three was a former mid-distance runner for her native island, Jamaica. With a lifetime best of 52.04 seconds in the 400m and 1:59.49 in the 800m, Turner represented Jamaica at both the junior and senior levels of competition. Her major accomplishments include the 1994 Commonwealth Games 800m gold (Victoria, Canada), being the first woman from the English-speaking Caribbean to run under 2 minutes in the 800m, and earning an unprecedented 11 gold watches from competing at the Penn’s Relay.
At the collegiate level, Inez Turner was simply dominant, garnering several individual NCAA titles (1993 and 1994 NCAA Women’s 800m champion) and leading her College team to two NJCAA tiles.
But what inspires Inez Turner? Does she have the aptitude to lead WSSU to greater heights? The remarkably woman believes she’s at WSSU for a reason and outlines her impressive career journey.
Those Early Mornings in Jamaica
Hard work and discipline have gotten her there. These were two characteristics that were instilled in her very early. “My father, who was a farmer, had four girls and we always thought that he wanted boys instead. He would wake us at 4.30 in the morning.” The morning routine included a 4-6 mile “program” that included fetching water for the household, watering the crops, tending to the animals, milking the cows, and getting ready for school and running 1.5 miles to school.
Like many other children in rural Jamaica, they’d also run home for lunch and then run back to school. Turner recalls how the morning routine began to pay dividend as she and her three siblings (Evette, Janice and Grace) began to be recognized as very good runners in their hometown. “Those early years have also taught me patience,” she reflected. “When I try to rush things, I just remember the name of my primary school (Wait-A-Bit).”
Inez Turner and her sisters dominated the annual sports day athletics competition at Wait-A-Bit All Age School. Her first coach, Rob Henry, a 9th grade teacher, saw her talent and began working with her three times per week. Coach Henry entered the young Turner into a primary school parish championship meet; she made the parish team and went on to compete in the 800m and 1,500m in Jamaica’s capital city, Kingston.
She Reigned Supreme in High School
“I was heavily recruited by Ferncourt High School and was about to enroll there (1988), when I met Dr. Paul Haughton, the team doctor at Vere Technical High School, who encouraged me to enroll at Vere Tech instead. At the last minute, I chose Vere over Ferncourt and I have never regretted making that decision,” she said. “I ran all 4 years at Champs and was a leader and captain of the team.”
She was the Class II and Class I 800m champion and represented Jamaica at the Carifta Games in the Under-20 category, capturing 800m gold (1989, 1990, and 1991) and 400m gold (1989 and 1991). Her 1989 victory in the 800m established a new Carifta record of 2:07.60. In 1991, at the end of her senior year at Vere, the 19-year-old Turner ran 2:02.00 in the 800m and made the Jamaican team to the Junior Pan-American Games in Havana, Cuba, where she captured gold in 2:04.57. But why did she choose Barton County College in Kansas when all major colleges in the US courted her for their teams.
College in the US
The reason is simple: Barton had a good relationship with Vere and several Vere alums attended Barton and were doing very well, Turner remembers. It was no wonder then that made a smooth transition to Barton and went on to dominate the 800m. During her 2 years tenure at Barton, Turner didn’t lose a single individual 800m race. She was the NJCAA 800m outdoor champion in 1992 and 1993. She also competed in cross-country, the 400m and the 4×400 relays while at Barton.
In 1993, the then 21-year-old Turner chose to continue her education at Texas State University because “I needed a rest.” Up to that point she was constantly competing and wanted to go into a program where it was competitive but where the emphasis was not winning championships. Turner wanted a laid-back school where she could focus on her events.
At Texas State, Inez continued her exploits as she became the 1994 NCAA Outdoor 800m champion. In the summer of 1994, she represented Jamaica at the Commonwealth Games in Canada, capturing gold in the 800m in an impressive 1:59.85 and becoming the first woman from the English-speaking Caribbean region to run the 800m in under 2 minutes. In her senior year (1995), she captured the 800m NCAA title and was an 800m finalist at both the 1995 IAAF World Indoor and Outdoor Championships.
Wall of Fame
In 1996, Inez represented Jamaica at the Atlanta Olympics and failed to medal in her events. At the 1997 IAAF World Championships in Athens, Greece, she didn’t medal in her individual event but was a member of the Jamaican 4×4 relay team (Lorraine Fenton, Deon Hemmings and Sandie Richards) that took bronze in a national record time of 3:21.30. She took off 1998 to have her first child and return to the track in 1999. On her return, she was running in the 54-seconds range for the 400m and 2:08s in the 800m, so she stopped running after a few years.
In 2007, at the age of 35, three children later and not having competed for several years, Inez Turner returned to the Penn Relays where she anchored the Executive Track Club team to victory in the mile relay. “I trained for about 7 months and that was a great feeling when the crowd gave me a standing ovation on the victory lap,” she said. That was her 11th gold watch at the Penn Relays. She has since been inducted into the Penn Relays Wall of Fame for her exploits while competing for Vere and Texas State.
Turner graduated from Texas State with a Bachelor of Science degree in exercise and sports science and lived in New York for some time. She then moved to North Carolina in 2007 and took a part-time job as member of the coaching staff at North Carolina A&T University (NCA&T). In May 2010, she joined the staff at WSSU.
With her WSSU cross-country teams capturing the men’s and women’s titles at the 2010 CIAA Championship (Division II), Inez Turner is now poised to take her athletes to higher levels and is well set to write the next chapter in her track & field career. -Edited by Desmond Palmer