ALMOST ALL AMERICAN, TWICE

SHARE YOUR STORY SERIES: The pressure of athletic perfectionism, identity crisis, resilience through reinvention, & redefining success and self-worth

"No longer am I chasing the outgoing runner, the recognition, the titles or running from the fear of never being enough. Instead, I’ve stepped out of the lane to run toward purpose—because I still have races yet to run."

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MY NAME IS Talia Johnson & THIS IS MY STORY

D3 → DI Track & Field | Whittier College → University of the Pacific | TAC Ambassador 

I remember running into the zone of lane seven, during what I thought was my last NCAA race ever–the other teams’ “stick!” call, the announcer overhead signaling who was leading down the back stretch. But suddenly amidst the commotion, everything….stopped. I quite literally saw the title of “All American” slipping from my fingers as I stretched out for my teammate’s hand… one step out of the handoff zone. Frantically I looked to the official, holding my breath to see which color he would raise; at the sight of the red flag waving above his head, I collapsed onto the track in tears. 

Recruited from a rural town on California’s Central Coast, I started my collegiate track and field career in 2019 at Whittier College, a small liberal arts school in the SCIAC conference. However, to my surprise and disappointment, my first collegiate season was cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic, just a week after our first conference meet. Within literally hours, all the excitement of living in Los Angeles and competing on a much bigger stage evaporated as I packed up my dorm and headed home. From the attic of our family’s barn, I finished my freshman and sophomore years, sitting in front of Zoom for what seemed like an eternity. It wasn't until 693 days later that I would step back onto the track, running in my purple “W” racerback, but now as a junior in college. 

My junior season was my first real return to the track after nearly two years of “maybe we’ll go back next month” and solo workouts. I came back hungry for redemption, but the biggest hurdle standing in my way now– the number 13. I’d finish each 100m that season holding my breath as the clock flashed results, hoping that this was the day I’d break it. Each race turning to look at my dad in the stands frantically refreshing Finished Results, only to see him shake his head in disappointment. Still I sprinted, working harder at practice each day til I saw the number 12.

Later that spring, our 4x100m relay team qualified for the 2022 Outdoor Nationals in Ohio and I thought maybe this was my chance to achieve what I had wanted for so many years and worked so hard towards, an All-American title. However, even after running as the second leg meet after meet, event win after event win, record after record–to my utter disbelief, I was named the alternate. The only thing keeping me from running on that team was two-tenths of a

second. Two-tenths. I felt like my physical performance had fallen short when it mattered the most, and mentally, I didn’t have the tools to pick up the pieces.

Within the same week I learned I’d be watching Nationals from the stands, I crossed the 100m finish line in Redlands and saw 12 on the clock for the first time. This was a breakthrough I craved all season, landing in the middle of one of the hardest weeks of my track career. This relay team combination went on to place 7th in the nation and earn All-American honors, while I watched and cheered from the stands. I’d hit the career milestone I’d been chasing for years, attending the national stage of college athletics, but instead it was from the sidelines wearing a bib that never got pinned across our purple “WC.”

My senior year was supposed to be the rewrite of the previous season– and it had looked like that was the case from the very start. With many of our seniors graduating, I stepped into the role of team captain and continued to serve as the female track representative for SAAC. It was important to me to lead not just by example on the track, but in how I showed up for my teammates and fellow student-athletes off it.

Meet after meet, I was dropping my 100m time, crossing the line among my own teammates often in the top 3 seeds. Our PRs each week held the fastest national seed time for most of that outdoor season– and on paper, all we had to do at Nationals in Rochester, NY, was beat out two other teams to secure All-American honors. Each week, word of our relay’s achievements plastered the school news reports–and especially on our small campus, this meant people from other sports programs I barely knew would stop me to say they’d seen our names and the good work we were doing in our developing team.

I rode the runners’ high all the way to Conference Champs– where we took home the 1st place medal and broke the school’s 4x100m relay team record. Before my time was up running as a Poet, I had managed to break into the All-Time List at #6, experienced my first indoor meet on a banked track, and ran my 100m PR in 12.55. However, I wanted to leave Whittier not only with my time solidified in the program’s history books, but with an NCAA trophy and new title attached to my name. Every practice, every handoff, I was chasing the chance to prove, not only to myself but what felt like the world, that I belonged on that track especially when it mattered most. 

My mental health and self-confidence started to unravel long before we ran out of the zone. This was my turning point–the year I could prove to myself that I not only earned a spot on our relay heading to Nationals for the second year in a row, but that I was worthy to be there running in that lane. After spending the end of my junior season on the sidelines as an alternate, I came into this next season hell-bent on claiming a place on that podium. With blinders on during every practice, rep, lift, and race I was making sure no one could question whether I belonged.

Each meet we either kept our National lead or lowered the school record, the pressure of the silent messages I held onto felt heavier and heavier on my shoulders– “you’re the slowest of the four legs, don’t be the one to mess it up, don’t let your team down, don’t blow your shot, don’t-don’t-don’t!”. Instead of feeling confident and ready going into the race of my career, I felt clouded in self-doubt and didn’t realize how destructive my ways of thinking and self-talk had become.

Upon the moment that it came I could finally prove to my coach, teammates, family and friends watching, and most importantly–myself– it became a self-fulfilling prophecy exactly how I feared it would. Everything fell apart in a matter of minutes, which to a sprinter, feels like a lifetime. Disqualified. Everything I had worked for, the amount of time and energy I devoted–gone with the wave of the official’s flag. While other relay teams gathered together with their coaches in a collection of “We did it!” or “I’m so proud of you!” I sat alone on the steps just outside of the stadium. Not met with hugs– but instead an inbox full of opened “goodluck!”s that had quickly turned into unread “I’m so sorry”s. No one knew exactly what to say, because how do you console an athlete who just dropped the ball in the biggest race of their career. The only person who had an inkling of understanding, being a previous sprinter himself in his youth, was my grandfather—who called me only to say, “Keep your head held high. You have races yet to run.”

I spent nearly that entire year leading up to Nationals convincing myself that becoming an All-American would finally make it okay for me to walk away from track—that a title such as this would give incomparable value to the 18 years of my life that I gave to this sport. If I proved to myself that I was worthy of having the title too, like my teammates had just done before me, then I could feel satisfied with my athletic performances and “losing” the large athletic identity I carried for so long.

So when we were not handed that trophy or stood atop the podium, it felt like my identity disappeared and I didn’t know exactly who I was without it. Our team had led the nation most of the season, which on our small Southern California campus meant something of a triumph. Yet, in a blur, all the sense of relevance I held onto for months was gone–and I was staring retirement in the face, empty handed. 

This identity crisis found a way into my chest and stayed there for months–eating away at the athletic identity that had followed me everywhere I went since childhood. For as long as I can remember, I’d been the “track girl”. It was the label attached to my name, the way people recognized me at school, the shorthand for who I was and what I devoted so much of my time to embodying.

After flying home from Nationals, I landed at LAX and drove up the 101, quieted by the disappointment burrowing in my chest. I did not step foot, nor spike, on another track for the subsequent four months. The one place that became a church-like sanctuary turned into a reminder of what I lost. I wasn’t just physically tired, but I was mentally grieving. This grief manifested as avoidance, withdrawal, and diminished my internal self-worth. Without track, I didn’t know exactly where I fit anymore. I could still hear my old coach’s voice in my head saying, “Track is the one sport where there is nowhere to hide,” and in those first few quiet months of my gap year, I felt like this failure was hanging out to dry for everyone to see. 

Just when I thought my story with track had ended, a new chapter found me. While I was sending out 11 applications to physical therapy schools across the West Coast, I received the most unexpected offer of the year. My previous head coach from Whittier offered me the coaching position as the Men’s and Women’s Sprint Coach at Cuesta College, our local community college.

At first, I was unsure if I was ready to step back onto the track, but his offer instilled in me a sense of value– the knowledge of the sport I had built up over my career could be used to teach, guide, and mentor. Coaching became my second chance and the opportunity to mend the part of me that felt like I had failed. I saw his offer as a chance to rewrite the end of my track and field career– this time from the other side, not wearing a lane number or a pair of spikes. And in that process, I began rewriting the ending of my story. 

By the end of my first coaching season, I helped shape the growth and confidence of 40 athletes on Cuesta’s track team. I passed on the knowledge and techniques of sprinting I had spent years collecting first-hand, shared my own tips for recovery or getting through grueling workouts, and stood beside athletes in their moments of struggle and success. I was the person they could vent to after a tough race and the first one waiting at the finish line to celebrate their heat win or new PR. 

In giving so much to my athletes, I felt the fire of running relight once again inside me. That spark gave me the courage to take one more lap on the track and use my final year of NCAA eligibility at The University of the Pacific. Under Coach Jones’ guidance and surrounded by a new team of women who welcomed a “seasoned” sprinter like me, I was able to run with joy again. At my very first meet back since that day at Nationals, I tied the school record in the 60m indoors race in Nevada. To my wholehearted surprise, I not only still had some speed left in my legs but also that I could compete without the crushing weight of my own expectations. This last track season, while juggling my first year of physical therapy school, barely sleeping, and running on copious amounts of caffeine, I learned something important: if I have air in my lungs and legs that can carry me forward, I’ve already won my race. Whether or not I cross the line first or last.

Looking back on my track career, I’ve learned that grieving a sport is truly a process—and it doesn’t just stop because I wanted it to. For me, I had to take a step back to realize that my 100m PR isn’t what made me a good person and the title of All-American, no matter how badly I wanted it, was never going to “fix” the feelings of not being enough or that I had to earn my value through performance in a sport where its most crucial. What shocked me the most was how significant the title of “Coach J” turned out to mean to me. This title lit a new fire inside me I didn’t know I needed the most– a newfound purpose rooted pouring into others, instead of proving myself. In my debut coaching season, my first year post-collegiate athletics, I stepped onto each track for someone else’s success—and unexpectedly found a way back to mine. 

In a highly ego-centric, numbers-driven sport like track, it’s normal, even easy, to believe and internalize that your time, seed, mark, heat, or title determined your “worth”. Everyone watching expects you to perform– you expect YOU to perform each race too. But in all actuality, it’s important to separate your sense of self worth away from your times, heights, or splits. Losing a race, scratching on the board, dropping the baton, or missing out on the chance at a title doesn't take away from the title you already have–human. Whether it’s competing in community college, D3, D1, or for the chance to be an All-American, your attitude and your effort are the only things you can control. Regardless of the meet’s outcome. 

Now, post-competition and post-collegiate, I’m unlearning and relearning what exactly it means to be an athlete. Even when the clock and heat sheet didn’t always show it, I’m learning how to give grace to the girl that ran her heart out each season and gave her everything back to the sport that had already given her so much. No longer am I chasing the outgoing runner, the recognition, the titles or running from the fear of never being enough. Instead, I’ve stepped out of the lane to run toward purpose–because I still have races yet to run.