CAMDEN — FAYETTEVILLE - Students at the New School this fall may realize something new about the substitute teacher they last saw last spring.
Like in 2015-2016, University of Arkansas graduate Chrishuna Williams again will substitute teach at the pre school through ninth grade private school in Fayetteville.
This time she will do it as a U.S. Olympian.
The former quartermiler from Dallas for Coach Lance Harter’s Razorbacks’ women’s track team stepping up to the 800 meters as the SEC Indoor champion her senior season of 2015, Williams stunned the track world with her own fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Navigating through collisions ahead of her, Williams ran a personal best 1:59.59. She clocked just .04 behind runner-up Ajee Vilsa and just .04 ahead of third place Molly Ludlow, to nab the U.S. team’s third and final 800-meter spot at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore.
So Williams, paying expenses for her 2016 pro career as a substitute teacher until netting a Nike sponsorship shortly before the Olympic Trials, will run the 800 for the U.S. Aug. 17 at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Two Razorbacks senior All-Americans become Olympians off Arkansas’ newly crowned NCAA Outdoor championship team, Taylor Ellis-Watson, on the U.S. 4 x 400 relay after running 4 x 400 relays with Williams in 2015, and Dominique Scott, running the 10,000 meters for South Africa in Brazil and the mile anchor when Williams ran the 400 on Arkansas’ NCAA Indoor champion distance medley relay in 2014, are elated to see Chrishuna bound for Brazil.
They all still train in Fayetteville.
“I was so happy for her,” Ellis-Watson said. “I was tearing up crying. People weren’t looking at her like she would make the team but we have so much confidence in her. She didn’t sneak on that team. She deserved it.”
Ellis-Watson and Williams were together in Eugene but still might have hear Scott watching back in Fayetteville having already qualified for South Africa’s team.
“ I was jumping off my couch, screaming and shouting,” Scott said. “That girl, she's worked so hard and she really deserved to make that team. We definitely have a very special bond, Chrishuna and I. Just to see all the sacrifices she's made be worth it was really cool. I'm really happy for her.”
Her new fame won’t deter her, Williams said, from staying in Fayetteville to keep training under Arkansas women’s sprints coach Chris Johnson and still substitute teach when available.
“I’m sponsored by Nike and track is my No. 1 priority,” Williams said.
“But I told them that at the New School, that if they need me, I’ll sub. It's not something I just have to do now. It's more something I want to do. I love being around kids. I started with pre-school. I also did third grade and fifth grade a lot.”
If she can inspire New School kids to do more than they think they can like Johnson inspired her, then Chrishuna will be a Grad A. teacher.
A 10-time All-American at Arkansas, mostly on relays including on the NCAA Indoor champion distance medley relay for Harter’s 2014, Razorbacks, Williams was a quartermiler that Johnson believed could be half again better in the half though Williams didn’t share his belief.
“ I've always been told that I should move up, but two laps for the 200, I was like, 'No, I can't do that,” Williams said. “I always said, 'No, I can't do that.' So one home meet. He just told me, ‘Chrish, I'm going throw you in the 800.' I said, 'Coach, no you're not.' But he actually did, and ever since that day he's you're going to run the 800.”
Teammates like Ellis-Watson citing Chrishuna’s strength over speed suited her in the 800 over the 400, reinforced the coach.
“ I had so many people believing in me saying, 'This is your event,' that I had to believe it for myself as well,” Williams said. As I kept competing in meets and saw my times, I was like, 'I belong here.”
Now she belongs in the Olympic Games and teaching, too.