Olympian Natasha Kaiser-Brown returns to Des Moines to train high school athletes

The Olympics are special for Natasha Kaiser-Brown.

The Des Moines native, formerly Natasha Kaiser, was once in the same shoes as the nearly 600 athletes from the United States competing for a medal in Paris this summer, give or take 30-some years.

Kaiser-Brown – a standout track athlete at Des Moines Roosevelt turned professional – won a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. She never thought she was great; she just worked hard and figured it out.

Now, she is back in her hometown after a prolific professional career and decades as a collegiate head coach.

And Kaiser-Brown is turning her attention to the athletes of tomorrow, hoping to take some of the top athletes in the state – and some diamonds in the rough just waiting to be discovered – to the next level.

Kaiser-Brown started as a Des Moines Roosevelt stand out

Kaiser-Brown started training in the Des Moines Roosevelt High School hallways.

In the offseason after winning her first Iowa high school state title in 1982 – the first of nine – she didn’t want to lose any progress she’d made.

“After school, when the hallways cleared out, I would jog a couple laps, stretch and try to remember whatever workouts we had done the year before,” Kaiser-Brown reminisced.

Roosevelt’s two long hallways provided ample room for workouts but were far from the track. Dirt and dust collected on the linoleum floors during the school day, and it created a slick surface for running.

When Kaiser-Brown tried to hook turns in the hallways, she slid into lockers or lost her footing.

The cinder track that she trained on during the season wasn’t much better. Ruts in the first lane, a longer run in the second lane and weeds in the outer lanes.

Her hallway hijinks paid off, though.

Kaiser-Brown won the 100, 200 and sprint medley state titles in 1984 and 1985, the 400 in 1985, and she claimed the 200 title in all four years of her high school career. Her record time in the 100-meter dash – 11.5 seconds – stood for over 30 years, until Sydney Milani took over the top spot by one one-hundredth of a second in 2018.

Track takes Kaiser-Brown to Missouri, the Olympics and beyond

Kaiser-Brown's collegiate career at Missouri wasn’t any less illustrious.

She was a six-time NCAA All-American and set a national collegiate record in the 400-meter dash at the 1989 Indoor Championships. She finished her college career as a five-time Big Eight conference champion and earned the distinction of the Big Eight Female Athlete of the Year in 1989.

Her distinguished track and field career culminated with a silver medal in the 4x400-meter relay at the 1992 Summer Olympics – one of two trips to the Olympics – and a gold medal in the same event at the 1993 World Championships, where she established a World Championship record at the time.

Kaiser-Brown decided to call it quits – as an athlete – around 2000.

“I thought, ‘This is enough,’” she said. “I’ve been running since about fourth grade. I thought we needed to start our family. I kept training and after (my daughter) was born, I would see if I could come back.”

In an ode to her Des Moines roots, Brown’s final hurrah came at the Drake Relays.

Then she turned to coaching.

Kaiser-Brown's new career took her to several stops, including Drake and her alma mater, Missouri. In that time, she learned what it took to create world-class athletes, especially from a training perspective.

She carried with her a laundry list of athletes who accomplished some of college track’s top feats under her tutelage.

But over time, as her approach to the sport remained the same and the college athletics landscape evolved by leaps and bounds, Kaiser-Brown found herself pulled away from college coaching.

And – after focusing once again on family and following her husband, Brian Brown, back to Iowa – she’s ready to help a new kind of athlete.

Kaiser-Brown returns to her roots to help Iowa high school athletes

“I never really changed my mentality, which is good and bad,” Kaiser-Brown said. “For me, coaching at the collegiate level, any athlete, any ability, if you can show me you can spell 'track', you’re on my team.”

Kaiser-Brown thinks anyone can be a great athlete.

She says she was just a tall, lanky kid – with a pair of solid calves – who beat her brothers in childhood races.

In her own words, she had no clue.

“If I can figure this out on my own, anybody can,” she said. “They just need some direction.”

Development was the most exciting part of Kaiser-Brown's job as a coach. There were few things she loved more than turning an athlete with unrealized potential into a competitor.

However, some college programs want athletes who are finished products coming out of high school. Kaiser-Brown never stopped loving coaching and development, but she pulled away from certain aspects of college athletics.

As coach, she always recruited Iowans.

Even during her time coaching at Missouri, Kaiser-Brown paid attention to high school athletes in her home state. She attended Drake Relays and the state meet in search of talent – which she found.

But she also saw a lot of athletes going through the motions, not taking the warmup drills as seriously as the race itself.

Kaiser-Brown knew firsthand – from injury struggles of her own – how important those parts of the sport are to track and field athletes. So, even after leaving college coaching, she saw a place where she could impact the athletes of tomorrow.

A place where she could hopefully create the next Olympian out of Iowa.

She joined the team of trainers at Innovative Athletics Sports Performance, owned and run by Ryan Smith. The two-time Olympian – who knows a thing or two about going fast – will do speed training with athletes from football to volleyball.

“I like what (Smith) is doing,” Kaiser-Brown said of her decision to train at IAP. “He’s invested in the community, and he’s taking some raw talent and really working with it. Yes, we all want to work with a superstar because that’s easier, right?

“But, like with college coaching, just wanting that world-class athlete doesn’t fit me anymore. I still want the walk-ons, the ones that need to be developed. There’s room for anybody, any level.”

A dedicated facility with turf and curved treadmills – used for developing speed – and an assortment of equipment used for strength training and mobility is a far cry from the hallways of Roosevelt High.

But she is eager to help create the next great athlete.

And with the Roughriders’ alumna back in town, it might not be long before that becomes a reality.

Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Olympian Natasha Kaiser-Brown returns to Des Moines to train high school athletes