MARCH 6, 2025 | SPORTS | By Olivia Link (Staff Writer)
Josh Williams ‘26, track extraordinaire and Colorado College record-holder in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter, did not start off his athletic career as a runner. Williams played soccer and basketball, the latter of which he expected to be his ticket to college athletics. It was not until an ACL tear before his senior seasons that he realized it wouldn’t be possible since he did not have the film to be recruited for either sport. Rather than abandoning his dream of being a collegiate athlete, Williams pivoted and started running.
Williams had long pictured himself competing at the collegiate level, but it was not until his injury that he gave any serious thought to which schools interested him.
“Before I tore my ACL, I kind of just wanted to compete in college,” he said. “After I tore my ACL, it kind of required a perspective shift. I realized how important the community I was in was to my recovery.”
He began to evaluate schools based on how their athletes felt and how their coaches communicated, and when Williams visited CC, he knew it was the right fit.
“This felt like a place where I could really be supported as an individual,” he said. “I wasn’t just some number on a sheet, they actually looked at me as a person.”
Williams was excited about the idea of “championship culture” that he saw here, the drive toward victory despite a previous lack of success. Williams knew that he and the program would grow together, and they did.
Colorado College’s Track and Field team did not occupy a particularly notable position in the college track landscape — Williams was in the first class of sprinters to be recruited. Requirements for the team were much lower early in his college career. Williams recalls, “there weren’t requirements for people to go to all the lifts, and people would often miss practices.”
Williams credits coach Katie Bretscher for helping change the attitude to work toward a more competitive program. Williams says the team has grown a lot over the last three years, as the team receives new recruits “who really do love this sport and are willing to put in the time and effort to be great at it.” Most importantly, he believes, the runners now have the “buy-in” to care about making history as evidenced by the fun they have both on and off the field.
Unlike in his first year, the team now has strong chemistry, and Williams says it has given him some of his closest friends. His favorite team tradition is the relatively new Mock Meet held right before the start of the outdoor season. While the event was canceled this year due to the cold, the team was still able to run its most memorable race last Wednesday, the mixed relays. Each relay team dressed up in costumes and raced toward victory, with Josh’s team coming in first. His team costume “was not as eccentric as some of the other groups,” Williams explained, adding that “we got to wear speed suits like professional athletes at work, which was pretty cool.”
Williams is no stranger to first-place finishes: during last year’s Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship, he took first in the 200 and 400 meters and set a conference record for both events. Williams holds the school 100-meter record with a time of 10.45, the 200-meter record with a time of 21.05 and the 400 record with a time of 47.48.
Williams attributes some of his success to his mindfulness. Before racing, he listens to low-key music to stay calm and out of his head. Once he reaches the venue, he likes to jog a lap and talk to his teammates. An hour before his race begins, you can find Williams meditating on the sidelines, a practice he has been doing daily for the last few years.
“In those high-pressure moments I am able to center myself, take a breath, just calm down and really lock into the moment,” he says, adding that mindfulness has many benefits outside of his athletic performance.
With indoor season ending, we asked Williams to reflect on the last few months and share his hopes for the future. Williams feels “very positive” about his indoor season success, which included two new indoor records: the 200 in 21.76 and the 400 with a time of 49.22.
These milestones came as a bit of a surprise, as he remarked that his performance in the outdoor season is consistently faster than in the indoor season.
“The fact that I’ve gotten the numbers that I have indoors has me really excited looking at the outdoor season,” Williams said.
Williams is “chasing some big numbers” this year, aiming to run under 21 seconds in the 200 and under 46 seconds in the 400. He hopes to compete at nationals again and believes the team may send a relay team as well. This is the last year that Trinity University will be in the same conference as CC, so the team hopes to secure an SCAC title while its biggest rival is still in the league.
Williams will race this weekend at the Last Chance Qualifiers meet at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. With a top 22 finish, he will advance to the Track and Field Indoor Nationals, which takes place over spring break. The rest of the team will compete in their first meet of the outdoor season this Saturday at Occidental College in California.