SETTING NEW GOALS

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Alexis Brown's personal journal is filled with goals and expectations that she's already met.

Last Friday, on the opening day of the NCAA National Indoor Championships in Virginia Beach, Va., the Baylor graduate long jumper and sprinter wrote: "This is the day you become a national champion and jump 6.90 (meters)."

That afternoon (March 14), she fulfilled prophecy, jumping exactly 6.90 meters (22 feet, 7 ¾ inches) and winning Baylor's first-ever national championship in the long jump.

"Every meet, I write down my goals, but I get super specific," Brown said. "And it's so crazy, because I showed Coach Stacey (Smith) my journal after I won nationals. And the first thing I wrote after I thanked the Lord was, 'This is the day you become a national champion and jump 6.0.' To actually go out there and win nationals and jump 6.90, it shows that if you trust in the Lord and you trust in yourself, the rest will be taken care of."

The most consistent jumper all season, Brown put together arguably one of the best-ever series with four 22-foot jumps. Even on her last attempt, when she had already wrapped up the title, Brown went 22-0 ¼.

"I decided to take the last jump, because I was like, 'I won't get this moment back,''' she said. "Even if I fouled, even if something happened, I won the meet. I looked in the stands, and Coach Stacey didn't even watch the jump. She was turned around crying. I look and see my parents, and my dad's like, 'Go for it!' So, I was like, okay, I'll go for it. Everybody thought I was injured, because I immediately went to the ground. But it was the emotions just hit."

Brown added, "People see the glory, but they don't know the story."

Her story began at Kennedale (Texas) High School, where Brown was a two-time state champion in the long jump and 2019 state champion in the 100 meters.

"Me being a sprint coach, I saw that she could sprint, but 'Oh, she can jump,''' said Baylor head coach Michael Ford. "I just fell in love with Alexis from the start, her and her family. I had a really good connection with her dad, because we're from the same town, we're both from Rochester, New York."

Although Brown opted to go to Florida, Ford continued to follow her, "because you never know, sometimes God will close a door and reopen another one."

Struggling through health issues at Florida, Brown's bests with the Gators were 7.44 in the indoor 60-meter dash, 20-1 ¾ in the long jump and 11.71 in the outdoor 100-meter dash.

When she decided to transfer and get back to Texas, "there wasn't any doubt in my mind that if she was able to come, then we would get her," Ford said. "But it was me just making sure we had enough money to bring her in, scholarship-wise. . . . Once we found out about the injury and we kind of got that managed, I think everything else kind of snowballed."

After three years at Florida and her first year at Baylor, Brown had surgery to remove an extra bone in her foot that had been the source of most of her health issues.

Fully healthy for the first time since high school, Brown put together a year to remember, placing fifth in the long jump at the NCAA Indoor, NCAA Outdoor and USA Olympic Trials and adding All-America honors in the 4x100 relay at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

But those finishes only served as motivation coming into the 2025 indoor season.

"I'm not going to finish fifth again," she said. "My goal, I told Coach Ford and Coach Stacey, 'I want to win.' So, I was working and making sure that I did all those steps to make sure that I brought home that win."

Doing "all the little things," Brown said she took care of her body, got enough sleep and ate right, "to make sure that when I'm competing this season, I couldn't be like, 'Well, what if I had done this?' I took the weight room a lot more seriously this year. And really, just trusting in my coaches more and trusting myself. I think nationals was the first meet where I trusted my mark and I trusted myself."

Setting a school record in the 60-meter dash in 7.14 at the Jarvis Scott Invitational earlier in the season, Brown added a sixth-place finish at nationals and scored 13 of the Bears' 14 points in finishing 15^th in the team standings.

Now, as she turns her attention to the outdoor season, Brown has even loftier goals – winning the long jump, making the finals in the 100 meters and potentially a top-three finish in the 4x100 relay.

"I'm ready to break more records," she said. "The goal is to go seven meters outdoors (23 feet). If can get 6.90 indoors, I think that's a good start."

Going from fifth to first, Ford said "now, she's going to have everything on her back."

"Now, everybody's going to be expecting her to win outdoor," Ford said. "So, the goals change, the media (coverage) changes. I always tell them, 'Once you start getting better, there's going to be more eyes on you. So now, we're going to see how she reacts and how we react going into outdoor season."

While Brown and the rest of Baylor's NCAA Indoor Championship participants will take the week off, Baylor will open the outdoor season on Saturday with the Clyde Hart Classic at Clyde Hart Track and Field Stadium.

SETTING NEW GOALS

Players Mentioned

Alexis Brown

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