By, DACODA MCDOWELL-WAHPEKECHE, Sports Editor
Alva native Lancaster became award-winning track athlete and now coaches student athletes at Northwestern.
ill Lancaster always knew wanted to be an athlete. But while growing up on her family’s farm in Avard, she did not have access to a normal gymnasium for practicing.
She had to improvise.
“I fixed a ball bearing and put it inside a tennis ball to practice my shotput with that,” Lancaster said. “In the summer, I would be driving the tractor, and you don’t stop the tractor. Well, I was still training, so I would get a small break and do my workout in the sand of the farm. I could check my long jump approach by drawing a line in the sand.”
Lancaster was training herself to be a track and field athlete on the collegiate level. She has coached at multiple universities since 1983. Now, as a coach at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, she said she hopes to help her student-athletes achieve their goals and be successful.
Lancaster started her athletic career running for the Kiwanis Alva Track Club during her childhood. She graduated from Carmen-Dacoma High School in the late 1970s. After graduation, she went to Norman to attend the University of Oklahoma, where she competed in women’s track and field.
When she ran at OU, the women’s track team was not in the NCAA. It was a part of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
Lancaster competed in the 600-meter dash, one-mile and two-mile relays while in college. Prior to 2018, Lancaster held the university’s 400-meter hurdle record for more than 30 years with a time of 59.03 seconds.
Lancaster graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor of arts degree in recreation in 1981. A few years later, she received a bachelor of arts degree in home economics fashion. She was the first female track and field scholarship athlete to graduate with a degree from the university.
From 1983 to 1986, Lancaster served as an assistant men’s and women’s track and field coach at OU. This coaching opportunity became her first of many.
THE YEAR THAT MADE HER
In 1988, Lancaster was inducted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame, invited to compete at the United States Olympic Trials in the heptathlon, and received a head coaching job in Toledo, Ohio.
Lancaster had a few coaching opportunities before she took over the head coach job at the University of Toledo.
“That was scary, to be really clear,” Lancaster said. “It was the best thing I ever did. Some of the best things are the scariest.”
Officials with the Drake Relays sent Lancaster a letter on October 19, 1987, telling her that she would be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the historic track meet in the spring of 1988.
This would not have happened if she had not bet on herself, she said.
She said she saw an opportunity to run in the heptathlon at the Drake Relays because they would not accept unattached runners in one-mile races because of the foreign professional athletes competing at the relays.
Lancaster trained for events in which she had never performed, helped her win the Heptathlon in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1989.
Lancaster competed in the 1988 United States Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Indiana. At the Olympic Trials, she finished 14th in the Heptathlon.
DAYS AS A RANGER
Fast forward to 2017, when Lancaster was named the head coach of Northwestern’s men and women’s cross country and track and field teams.
The first challenge of her coaching career at Northwestern was getting the program a locker room.
The city of Alva donated the Dunning Performance Center, formerly the local National Guard armory, which would be used as new batting cages for the university.
A room in the Health and Sports Science Building on campus became vacant because it was the old batting cages.
Lancaster asked Brad Franz if she could utilize the room as an indoor practice facility and locker rooms for her athletes.
Franz was the athletic director during the hire of Lancaster. Prior to her position at Northwestern, Lancaster had been volunteering as a coach at Cherokee High School for their track team, but visited campus and saw that she could make a difference, she said.
“She understands when a kid is struggling,” Franz said. “She knows when her athletes need a big push. Not a lot of coaches have great empathy, but she has been around at such a high level that she can relate to every student-athlete.”
Lancaster said her biggest challenge is balancing the needs of her student-athletes.
“I can’t always relate to them, but I can relate to what they are going through,” Lancaster said. “There were challenges where I almost did not make it through college. Failure does not dictate who you are, it makes you better.”
Sterlin Broomfield, a volunteer assistant for Northwestern’s cross-country and track and field teams, has been with the program since before Lancaster took the head coach position.
Broomfield ran for Northwestern’s cross-country team for two years after running at Cowley County Junior College. After completing his collegiate running career, he continued with the program as a graduate assistant.
Whenever Lancaster approached him, he was finishing up his bachelor’s degree. He was then asked if he would join as a graduate assistant. He had completed his two years as a graduate assistant under Lancaster.
Broomfield said he did not accept the opportunity right away.
“I looked into her bio, and said okay, she is the real deal,” Broomfield said.
Broomfield said that, even under Lancaster’s guidance, he has a free reign on things such as practice. He said he appreciates that because it shows that she trusts him and that they think alike.
Broomfield said that all of the recruiting trips meant a lot to him.
“She will tell me all the stuff about farming on those trips, and I don’t know anything about farming,” Broomfield said. “On the way back from Wichita, she put her slushie in the middle console. She was really laughing and having a good time that she accidentally lifted up the middle console to spill her slushie all over the vehicle.”
When asked about that memory, Lancaster joked that it was a waste of a good slushie.
She took over the program, which had only three runners at the time. Kayla Gourley, a former Northwestern student, was a part of that first cross-country team that Lancaster started with.
Gourley said she will never forget how she met Lancaster. Lancaster drove to watch Gourley run a 5K. After that race, Gourley’s junior college coach said she ran poorly, but Lancaster praised Gourley saying she ran well, Gourley said.
Gourley said Lancaster has a lot of knowledge to share with her athletes. Lancaster was Gourley’s first female coach. Her favorite memory of Lancaster was not on the track, but in the middle of a Cracker Barrel.
After Gourley placed 4th in the 10,000-meter run at the Great American Conference Outdoor Championships, she thought she would enjoy a normal meal with her teammates and coaches. Little did she know that Lancaster had prepared a round of applause for Gourley in the middle of the southern-style restaurant.
Gourley said that Lancaster has inspired her not only as an athlete, but as a coach, too. She still uses Lancaster’s wisdom and workouts, she said.
Gourley teaches at Wellington Christian Academy and coaches at Maize South High School, where she coached the 2020 5A Cross Country State Champions.
“I, to this day, still text her,” Gourley said. “I ask her questions about workouts and get her input on it. I just wanted to be the runner she was, but never became.”
Lancaster coaches more than 70 student-athletes on Northwestern’s campus. She said that, through her coaching, she hopes she gives good inspiration to push student-athletes.
“I love an athlete, and I love someone who will do whatever it takes to be better,” Lancaster said. “You’ve got to be willing to be patient. That is what I have that I have to relay to the athletes. You’re not going to get your degree in a year. Your athletic career is much the same. I have to give them that inspiration to see the long-term goals.”
Sterlin Broomfield said he thought that, in Lancaster’s time, her greatest accomplishment would be helping Gourley obtain 4th place in the 10,000-meter run.
To Lancaster, an achievement is more than an award.
“It’s not the medals,” Lancaster said. “It is the ability to recruit kids who are unaware of Northwestern and let them know what this community and school has to offer. It is not for everyone, but there are a lot of kids who needs this environment. Family-oriented, open conversation and the ability to be who you want to be and still accomplish your goals.”
