(This is the fourth part in a series of features on Baylor Athletics' 25 for 25, which honors Baylor's top 25 athletes in the 25-year history of the Big 12 Conference (1996-2021). Selected by a panel of Baylor experts, the final list was picked from a pool of over 100 candidates that came from all 19 intercollegiate sports that the school offers. Through the end of March, two honorees per week will be released and will also be featured during game broadcasts on the Baylor Sports Network from Learfield IMG College.)
 
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            When the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo were postponed until July 2021 because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, it was a devastating blow for athletes that had been preparing and pointing to that moment for four years or longer.
            For former Baylor All-American and two-time NCAA champion Trayvon Bromell, though, it bought a little more time.
            "It's crazy to go into the fourth year of a cycle and not have an Olympics," said Bromell, who's struggled with injuries since placing eighth in the 100 meters at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. "It benefits me, because it gives me time to get adjusted to (new coach Rana Reider's) program . . . and more time to train, to produce when next year comes."
            Bromell, who turned pro after his sophomore season at Baylor, owns the top 10 fastest 100-meter times in program history and school records in the 100-meter outdoors (wind-aided 9.76) and both the 60 (6.54) and 200 meters (20.19) indoors.
            The St. Petersburg, Fla., won the NCAA 100-meter title as a freshman in 2014, becoming the first and only 18-year-old to break 10 seconds with a wind-legal time (9.87). As a sophomore, he won the NCAA indoor title in the 200 meters with the second-fastest time in collegiate history (20.19) and capped his Baylor career by placing second in the 100 and third in the 200 at the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
            "Honestly, the indoor 200 is way bigger than that 100 title," Bromell said. "I'm not going to say I doubted myself, but I just felt like my short sprints would be better than my 200. That's why I say lessons come before blessings. God showed me that I can't just put one race bigger than the other. He gave me the talent to run fast in all races."
            Signing a sponsorship contract with New Balance after his sophomore season, Bromell won a bronze medal in the 100 at the 2015 World Championships, finishing behind Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin. And then, the following March, he won the 60-meter dash at the 2016 World Indoor Championships with a sizzling time of 6.47 seconds.
            Poised to replace the legendary Bolt as the "World's Fastest Human," Bromell developed a bone spur near his Achilles. While he still earned a spot at the U.S. Olympic Trials and made it through to the finals, Bromell placed a disappointing eighth in the 100 meters at 10.06 and left the track five days later in a wheelchair following the 4x100 relay.
            He went through two surgeries that kept him off the track for nearly three years and then blew an adductor muscle in his upper leg in a race on July 6, 2019, in Montverde, Fla
            "Back in 2018, (quitting) was definitely a thought, just trying to figure out everything, not knowing how things were going to go," he said. "And I wasn't getting better. I was still seeing doctors, seeing doctors, not knowing if I would be able to compete, if I would ever be at that level again. I probably got to that point where I was like, 'I don't know if this is something I'm going to keep up with.'''
            It was after that last injury that Bromell decided to switch coaches for just the second time in his running career. Garlynn Boyd coached him from 4 years old through high school, then Baylor men's track associate head coach Michael Ford trained him through college and first few years as a pro.
            "Coach Ford is still like a father figure for me, and leaving him was tough, but it was all for the best of my career," Bromell said. "How I felt after leaving Coach Ford, if I wasn't with the best possible group I could be with, then I was just going to end it. I want to follow my heart, follow my faith, and I felt like God put me with Rana for a reason."
            Reider has a knack for helping athletes return from serious leg injuries. 2012 Olympic triple jump champion Christian Taylor switched takeoff legs after knee pain and repeated in Rio in 2016, and then Canadian Andre DeGrasse joined Reider's group after a pair of season-ending hamstring injuries and earned a silver medal in the 200 and bronze in the 100 at the 2019 World Championships.
            "Rana has helped me tremendously," Bromell said. "And not just Rana alone. Our (physical therapists), and then being with this new training group of great men and women athletes, it's definitely a great experience and it's getting even better as time goes."
            Back in Montverde last summer, the same track where he had run a 10.54 just a year earlier, Bromell clocked a 10.04 in winning his heat. Three weeks later, stamping himself once again a legitimate Olympic gold medalist contender, he ran a 9.90 at the aptly named "Back to the Track" meet in Clermont, Fla.
            Coach G, Trayvon's first coach, had died 10 days before the meet in Montverde and was supposed to be there watching his comeback.
            "This was like her front-row seat in the new place," Bromell said. "To open up with that after four years of being off and not being able to do anything, it was a big thing for me for her and for the world to see God's work. We saw in the year prior to that, I was only able to go 10.5. One year later, I opened up with 10.04, which was basically close to my openers that I had run in the years prior to me being injured when I was 100% healthy."
            Bromell said he definitely plans on being in Tokyo this summer for the Olympics and hopefully grab the gold medal that eluded him five years ago.
But regardless of what happens on the track, he has a bachelor's degree in kinesiology from Baylor, earned a master's in sport management from Full Sail University in Orlando and plans to work on a doctorate in psychology when his track career is over.
            "Knowledge is the key," he said. "I think we lose track of that when we see the big dollar signs and think, 'Oh, I'm finally about to get some money, everything's going to be good.' Life doesn't always work that way. Everybody is not LeBron James, everybody is not Usain Bolt, everybody is not Peyton Manning. You can't just sit there and think, 'Oh, I turned pro, my life is good now.' No, you still want to have knowledge. Wisdom is key. A man that despises wisdom is a fool."
 
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