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  • National champs, all-Americans, Big 12 awards highlight Baylor Track & Field season

    // Posted In Athletics, Honors

    Nathaniel Ezekiel (left) and Alexis Brown (right) celebrate national championships in the 400m hurdles and long jump, respectively

    Baylor Track & Field’s legacy of Olympians, national champions and record-setters sets a high standard — a standard that this year’s athletes upheld and extended.

    Two Bears claimed national titles in individual events this spring, Baylor won three of four Big 12 Performer of the Year honors, and a host of Bears brought home all-America honors as head coach Michael Ford’s teams closed out another successful season last week.

    In March, Alexis Brown capped off the indoor season with a long jump national championship, and on Friday, Nathaniel Ezekiel finished the outdoor season with a 400m hurdles national title. Both were named Big 12 Outdoor Performers of the Year, giving Baylor its first-ever sweep of the men’s and women’s awards.

    For Ezekiel, already the 2025 Big 12 Male Performer of the Year for the indoor season, his national championship-winning time of 47.86 was the first sub-48 finish in the event in NCAA outdoor semifinal history, a Baylor program record, a new Nigerian national record, and the No. 3 finish in the world this year — a fantastic finish to a great Baylor career.

    Brown’s all-American finishes in the long jump and 4×100 meter were the latest accolades for the decorated senior. Last year’s Big 12 Performer of the Year award set a high standard to follow this year, and she lived up to expectations. At the NCAA Indoor Championships in March, she set a lofty goal for herself — a goal she met when she earned Baylor’s first-ever long jump national championship with an elite 6.90 meter leap, the best in the world this year (and third-best in collegiate history).

    Their title-winning efforts were the headlines, but far from the only outstanding efforts for this year’s team.

    As they wrapped up their season at the outdoor championships in Oregon, they recorded more than half a dozen all-American efforts: Demario Prince in the 110 meter hurdles, Molly Haywood in the pole vault, Tiriah Kelley in the 200 meters, Brown and Janae DeGannes in the long jump, Ezekiel in the 400-meter hurdles, and the 4×100 meter squad of Brown, Kelley, Hannah Lowe and Michaela Francois.

    Sic ’em, Baylor Track & Field!