Prodded into trying 400 hurdles, prep now in state’s elite

Mother begged. Mother pleaded.

“Please try it just one time,” Ronda McAllister said. “If you hate it, I won't say another word.'

We're not talking Lima beans or liver. We're talking the 400-meter hurdles, one of the most challenging track events. Daughter finally relented, to get mom off her back as much as anything.

Now a senior, Oelwein High School's Tashina McAllister is a two-time state champion in that event. She will compete in it - and three other events - this week at the Drake Relays. The race she avoided for so long has come to define her.

“I thought she would be good at it,” Ronda said. “She has nice, long strides. I thought she would love it.”

Instead, Tashina dug in her heels.

“She kept saying, ‘I don't want to, I don't want to,'” said Ronda, who had run the event as a prep at East Buchanan in the early 1980s.

Finally, Tashina shrugged and said OK. Craig Harrison, the coach at the time, inserted her name at a meet in Waukon, with an estimated seed time of 1:10. She won in 1:07.

The post race conversation went something like this:

Ronda: “What did you think?”

Tashina, beaming: “I really liked them.”

McAllister ran the 400 hurdles five more times as a sophomore. In her final race of the season, she won the 3A state title in 1:04.99.

She duplicated the trick last year, and

added the 100-meter title.

Friday morning, McAllister will run in the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles preliminaries. Chances are good she'll run in both finals that day.

Saturday, she'll compete in the shuttle hurdle relay and her signature event, in which she's rated No. 4 in the state in all classes at 1:04.60.

“I hope to win at least one event and make it to the finals in all of them,” she said Tuesday.

She won't go in underprepared or overconfident.

“Tashina is an extremely hard-working individual,” said Coach Doug Hannasch. “She's pretty quiet, but she handles herself well. She's a natural leader. I can't emphasize enough the character of this young lady.”

McAllister supports her teammates. And her rivals. That hasn't gone unnoticed.

The mother of an athlete from conference rival Waverly-Shell Rock cornered Ronda last year in, of all places, a Drake Stadium restroom.

Her words: “I love to watch your daughter run, and I love the way she handles herself.”

An excellent student, McAllister had college options aplenty. She chose Wartburg College, a Division III powerhouse.

“I went on a lot of visits, but it felt right at Wartburg,” she said. “It's not far away, and it feels like home.”

There's still room for growth.

“She is going to excel in college,” Ronda said. “I don't think she has tapped into what she's capable of doing.”