Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Torres Hitting Exceptional Stride As 'Multi'
April 09, 2015 | Track and Field, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - Lindsey Malone has a theory about track and field athletes who compete in multiple events as their main event - the pentathlon and heptathlon. In truth, Malone might be working with more than a theory because she was a "multi" herself, and a little introspection reveals many of those, ah, different traits that she finds in polished multi-partakers such as Abrianna Torres.
First, know that training to excel in five (pentathlon) and seven (heptathlon) events goes several miles beyond demanding in physical and technical requirements. "It's a commitment to the struggle," said Malone, an accomplished pentathlete/heptathlete at Colorado State (1998-2001) who coached at her alma mater for seven years and has been a University of Colorado assistant coach for the past seven.
During that span as a recruiter, spotting budding multi-event athletes has become easier, continued Malone: "They've got enormous competitive drive, they're excited by a lot of different things, they've got huge hearts - which is good and bad particularly with a lot of new things to learn. That's challenging. And they so want to be team players, they want to reach out and identify with a thrower. They feel like they need to go around and fit in anything."
Maybe of most importance, she added, "They have to be able to deal with having a rough spot before they find success."
Put Torres alongside Malone's checklist and every box is marked. Since arriving in Boulder in 2012 - with the exception of an injury-interrupted freshman season - every year has found the CU junior traveling an upward trajectory. Multi-event competition fits her as snugly as her spikes; it allows a variety and flexibility that never leads to boredom. But you get the feeling that Torres' life is never, ever going to be boring. She's a criminology buff who hopes someday to earn a living as a prison administrator or a homicide detective.
"I just love crime . . . no, no, not committing crime," she said, laughing. "It's so interesting. I love getting inside the minds of criminals."
But her life of crime can wait. This year has been her best by far, with PRs (personal records) dropping in bunches. With the outdoor season not a month old, Torres has reestablished personal bests in five of the seven heptathlon events. On March 30, the Pac-12 Conference named her its women's field athlete of the week after she recorded the league-leading heptathlon score (5,321 points) in the Texas Relays.
That total was a mere 36 points shy of her personal best and ranks in a tie for ninth among NCAA Division I women heptathletes. Atop those rankings is Alex Gochenour (Arkansas) with 6,027 points. Eight of the current top ten heptathlon point totals came in the same meet - the Texas Relays.
But let's back up to the indoor season, which Torres also excelled in but came away disappointed. In the UW Invite on Jan. 30 in Seattle, Torres set a personal record with 4,002 points in the pentathlon, finishing second but posting the top collegiate score. It made her just the third Buff to top 4,000 points since 1985, but three weeks later she scored 4,025 points in the MPSF Indoor Track & Field Championships in Seattle.
IF TWICE SURPASSING THE 4,000-point barrier was a high mark for Torres and the Buffs, she still didn't qualify for the NCAA Indoor Nationals. Torres' exclusion, said Malone, underscored what was "an extremely competitive indoor season across the nation . . . it's the first time, to my knowledge, that score hasn't qualified somebody. But that's the way it was - just a huge year. It was really unfortunate for her, but at the same time it lit a fire for later in outdoors (competition). She saying she's not going to miss this one."
Malone believes a heptathlon point total of 5,500 points or higher would assure Torres' inclusion in the NCAA Outdoor Nationals as well as "win her a Pac-12 championship - and that would be even sweeter."
Indeed, after missing the indoor nationals, Torres began a slow competitive burn that has carried her outside.
"I was disappointed because it's the best I've ever done," she said. "And not only that, it was a pretty good score to put up. But that just goes to show the level of the eliteness in the heptathlon is going up. I'm definitely not going to let that happen again in the outdoors. It just makes me more feisty."
That temperament - feisty - is particularly meaningful to Malone and her on-going search for multi performers. The pentathlon/heptathlon requires resilience, and resilience requires feistiness - "That fight to get back up," said Malone. "In recruiting I look for people who have that extra amount of feisty. I tell them you have to be feisty, just don't turn it back on me."
Torres, of San Luis Obispo, Calif., hasn't done that, but there's no doubt she's feisty. Resilient, too. Only two meets into her freshman season (2012) she suffered an ankle injury that scratched her first year, required surgery and left her with a reconstructive plate in her ankle.
Torres found a bright spot in the dark times: "I don't know how many times I called my dad crying. Both of them were reassuring, they had words of wisdom to help me get through. It was mainly mental for me that year, but it was a blessing in disguise. I got used to my new environment and had time to heal my body and mind. I was more settled in for my redshirt freshman year."
In Malone's words, Torres "lit it up" as a redshirt freshman, recording the eighth-best pentathlon score (3,832) in CU history. In her first outdoor season, she became CU's sixth-best heptathlete. It was a superb debut, but the following season Torres "was going through a lot of things outside track and hit a low spot," Malone recalled.
Time to re-roll the feistiness and resilience - which Torres quickly did. "This year," said Malone, "we're finally getting to see her with everything going in the right direction. It's fun to be a part of that with her."
But the way Malone tells it, fun is what the Buffs signed up for when "AB" signed on. Malone doesn't infringe on a prospect's time during recruiting or after signing. "That's when you let them have their senior seasons," Malone said. "You check in with them, send them good-luck emails. I had one (signee) who said, GÇÿCoach, do you have to call me every week?' I said, GÇÿNo, we can talk whenever you want to.' Abrianna said, "Coach, now we can talk every day.' Our first conversation lasted an hour and a half. Yeah, we hit it off."
Torres is the middle of five children (two boys, three girls) raised by Victor and Zona Torres. Both parents were track and field competitors at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo - and both set records in the jumps and hurdles. In 1984, Victor jumped 51-4 in the triple jump, the fourth-best in Mustangs history until 2002.
If Zona Torres doesn't ring any bells in the T&F world, the name CeCe Chandler should. That was the name Zona Torres competed under at Cal Poly, where she won three NCAA Division II championships (1984, '85, '87) in the 100-meter hurdles. Her best time in the Division II championships was 13:53, but her 13:47 timing stood as a Cal Poly record for 21 years.
Those numbers and accolades were all news to Abrianna until Malone started recruiting her. "I immediately recognized (CeCe Chandler)," Malone said. "Are you kidding me? You're one of the first Nike-sponsored athletes on the women's side. Back then that was enormous.
"I asked her if Abrianna knew about your legacy. She said, 'No, I don't want her to be competitive with me . . . I want her to go on her own path.' When I was there (recruiting), it was the first time Abrianna found out about her mom's records. It was astonishing to me, really interesting."
AND IT REGISTERED DEEPLY with Lindsey and Casey Malone, a two-time Olympian who coaches CU's throwers. The Malones are contemplating having a family, and how as top-flight athletes they would raise children and what expectations they might have for them.
"It was interesting to see that from a parent's perspective," Lindsey said. "I thought it was fantastic."
Reflecting on her upbringing, Abrianna said her mother's intentions might have even exceeded fantastic.
"My parents did a great job of not making myself or my siblings do any sport," she said. "They let us pick. I had no idea of the caliber of athlete my mom was until other people told me. She's very humble about that and I have tremendous respect for her for that . . . it makes me want to go out and do it. Now that I know it, I'm more competitive with her. She'll kind of tease me about things - like, 'Are you going to run faster than me in the hurdles?' But it's fun." (For the record, Abrianna's PR in the 100-meter hurdles is 14:36, set on April 4.)
What her mom accomplished on the track has given Abrianna a greater appreciation of the commitment required to excel. "It makes me realize how much dedication she put in," Torres said. "I had a PR this past weekend in the hurdles. I put in four years of practice for that and I wasn't seeing my times change. Four years is a long time. Now, I look at my mom's times and think, how long did she work for that?"
But not working tirelessly isn't in Abrianna's DNA. Malone saw it immediately when she recruited her, then on a daily basis since in practice. Moreover, Torres doesn't approach the work as drudgery. During the indoor season, a group of sprinters was leaving the weight room when Torres and a couple of other "multis" were entering.
Malone was watching and said one of the sprinters remarked, "Oh, now you have to go lift."
Torres' reply: "No, I get to go lift."
Said Malone: "I was so proud of her."
She describes Torres as "a very caring, concerned teammate," but adds, "She's a force of nature, a physical and mental beast." Yet there's that multi-personality that Malone sometimes sees in herself and in many of her athletes. "Sometimes she's a mouse," Malone said, "and that's something that we're working through, her having the confidence to be able know you're one of the best in the nation and be able to do that every time you hit the track."
"I'm still working on not getting scared before competitions," conceded Torres, who will compete with the rest of the Buffs this weekend in the Colorado Invitational at Potts Field. "That's something I've been able to improve on this year. I'm trying to turn the fear into aggression. I feel very prepared now.
"In the past when one event went wrong, I might dwell on it for the next event. You have to be mentally tough enough to say, 'Hey, that was one event, I'm moving on to the next one.' In the past, one (bad) thing would get me down. I think coach would describe me as a 'head case.'"
Malone's descriptions of Torres and her accomplishments were numerous and diverse, but "head case" didn't make the list. It is an impressive list - and it promises only to get better.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
