7 minute read
On Track for the Olympics
By Kim MacQueen (B.A. ’88)
From Wilhelmina model to NCAA champion to Olympian, alumna Colleen Quigley is a role model to young athletes.
For someone who wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to be growing up, Florida State University alumna Colleen Quigley (B.S. ’15) has already had two fantastic careers, and she’s not done yet.
Stand in the middle of a Times Square intersection and glance up at one of the many huge digital billboards, and you might catch a glimpse of her, larger-than-life and impeccably photographed in a Nike ad. Quigley’s first successful career was with Wilhelmina models, starting when she was in high school in St. Louis.
When Quigley wasn’t traveling the world for her modeling career, she ran track for her high school team. Coached by her dad, she earned several titles and awards almost without breaking a sweat, but she didn’t think much about it at the time. Everything changed when Karen Harvey, former Women’s Distance Running coach at Florida State, came to her high school for a recruiting visit. “She saw my potential,” said Quigley. “I’ll always remember her having that confidence in me, that belief that I was going to be good. I had to call my modeling agency and let them know I had decided to travel a different path. Coach Harvey stole my heart and I accepted a full ride scholarship to run for her and be a Florida State Seminole. To this day I am sure this was the best decision I have made in my life.”
Quigley strides down Malibu Beach sporting her Nike Team USA gear.
Photo by Ruben Domingo
Once at FSU, Quigley decided to make the most of her college experience. She discovered a love for her major, dietetics, took leadership roles and made lifelong friends, all while her pre-college weekly running regimen went from 30 miles per week to 60-plus. Quigley’s greatest strength was in steeplechase, an obstacle race where runners jump hurdles and a water pit over the course of 7.5 laps around the track. During her freshman year, she finished fifth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) steeplechase, only to have Harvey look her in the eye and tell her she’d be a National Champion one day.
Quigley with Coach Harvey at the 2013 Notre Dame Invitational.
Photo courtesy of FSU Sports Information
“I thought she was crazy, but kept my eye on that goal for the next three years,” said Quigley, who went on to win an NCAA Championship during her senior year at FSU. “I never dreamed of taking this running thing any further. My senior year, lots of people started asking me if I was going to go pro. Professional runner? Me? Well, I never even considered it.”
Quigley’s plan was to graduate with a degree in dietetics, apply for a yearlong internship in New York, then take an exam to be certified as a registered dietitian while living in New York with Kevin, her boyfriend of 10 years.
“We would finally be able to live in the same zip code after five years of long-distance,” Quigley explains on her website, ColleenQuigley.org. “Eventually, however, I decided to keep running and knew that my career would not land me in New York. Kevin decided he was ready for a change of scenery too, and accepted a job at a startup in San Francisco. At least we would be on the same coast and time zone.”
Quigley, left, poses for graduation photos with teammates Chelsi Woodruff (B.S. ’15), right, and Linden Hall (B.S. ’15), center, at the picturesque Mike Long Track on FSU’s campus.
Photo courtesy of FSU Sports Information
When Quigley discovered the Bowerman Track Club, based in Beaverton, Oregon, she knew it was the place for her. In 2015, she signed a contract with Nike and became an official member of Bowerman; then the wins really started racking up. She finished 12th in the 3000-meter steeplechase at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics in Beijing, and came in eighth in the same event at the Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016.
Lately her days are packed with training for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, yet she still finds time to pen inspirational articles for her website and other outlets. Her writing never loses that authenticity that comes from still being amazed — five years after going pro — that she can make a good living running, something that comes so naturally to her. She spends a lot of time corresponding with younger athletes on social media and via her email newsletter.
When Quigley steps up to the starting line for a race, her long blonde hair hangs down her back in French braids. An open, influential and wildly successful maven of Instagram, she thought it might be fun to post a photo of herself getting ready to race one day, and tagged it #frenchbraidfriday. Then she posted every Friday. That was two years ago.
Above: Quigley holds up the flag of the United States of America after placing second at the New Balance 5th Ave Mile in New York City on Sept. 9, 2018.
Photo by Jason Suarez
A true influencer, Colleen Quigley has over 183,000 followers on Instagram and uses the platform to give her fans a genuine snapshot into the day-to-day life of an Olympian. Everpresent in her stream are posts tagged #fastbraidfriday. Braided hair, a longtime race day signature for Quigley, inspired the hashtag that now serves as a source of empowerment for athletes of all ages, as well as a way for followers to share their own stories. Top left and above: Quigley inspiring fans at events in Chicago. Top right: Quigley takes a selfie with a fan after the 2019 USA Outdoor National Championship where she qualified for the IAAF World Championships. Photos courtesy of Colleen Quigley’s Instagram
Her followers responded by posting their own photos, and the hashtag took off, eventually becoming #fastbraidfriday. “I thought, ‘this could be bigger than I realized,’ when word spread through social media beyond runners to swimmers, basketball and soccer players, and horseback riders,” she said. “It’s been really cool to see people take it into their own lives and see what it means to them. Whatever sport you’re doing, if braiding your hair makes you feel confident and powerful and fast, I want to see you.”
And then it spread beyond sports.
“It means more to me now, because I see people posting their stories about really meaningful things that they're doing and challenges they're taking on in their lives,” Quigley said. “Maybe someone began chemotherapy and came back and decided to run their first 5k post-cancer. I realized these are big battles, crazy challenges that people are taking on.”
One Friday in February 2019 in the run-up to a race in New York, Quigley decided to set up a braid bar, working with the Bandier clothing store on Bond Street. More than 150 people showed up to get their hair braided for the weekend.
Speaking of feeling like the center of attention: In an interview, Quigley doesn’t mention that she went on to pull down her first national title the next day at the 2019 USA Track & Field Indoor Championships. For an Olympic athlete who trains for hours every day to be the best, her writing doesn’t spend a lot of time on the subject of winning either. She’s much more interested in helping other people win at sports and life itself.
Though Quigley is a runner first, she often models for sponsors like Nike.
Photo by Brian Jamie
“I want to connect with people outside of my day-to-day life,” she said. “Even though I probably will never be able to meet as many of them as I’d like in person, I just love to be able to create connections with other athletes who might be following along with me. Hopefully they can get something even more out of my journey than they would if they were just watching me on TV.”
