‘It’s different for everyone’: Women athletes — when to run on and when to move on

Nachelle Mackie and Whittni Morgan had much in common as they rose to the top of the collegiate running world at BYU, one decade apart.

They were both tall, graceful, dark-haired runners. They were both Utah natives and members of the same faith. They both married while still at BYU and both placed a high priority on having children. They both became NCAA champions. They both were courted by shoe companies and offered a chance to continue their running careers as professionals when they were finished at BYU.

That’s where their stories diverge. Mackie chose to start a family; Morgan chose to pursue a pro running career.

Later this summer, Morgan will compete in the Olympic Games in the 5,000-meter run; Mackie, now 34, will take her morning run on the Mapleton Canal Trail and shuttle her five kids to soccer practices.

It’s a choice many of BYU’s female athletes have to make in a family — and faith-driven culture. And, as Mackie noted, there’s no right or wrong choice. “It’s different for everyone,” she says.

Like the rest of the state, Mackie has cheered the success of the seven current and former BYU runners who qualified for the Paris Olympic Games. Two of them — Morgan and Courtney Wayment — are women, a fact that BYU women’s coach Diljeet Taylor considered significant.

“It’s a big deal that we have two women from BYU — two LDS women — in there,” Taylor said. “Culturally, they’re a good example for women who chase dreams, and these dreams are big.

“They didn’t have this path paved by women before them. They are trailblazers in this community.”

Many of BYU’s female track athletes have tended not to pursue postcollegiate careers, even when they had the credentials, talent and even financial incentives to make a go of it. Among the few who did pursue a postcollege career: Julie Jenkins, the NCAA 800-meter champion who competed in the 1992 Olympics five years after her college career ended; Amy Christensen-Palmer, who competed in the 2000 Olympics in the hammer throw two years after finishing at BYU; and two-time NCAA champion Tiffany Lott Hogan, who competed in the heptathlon at the 2004 Olympics six long years after finishing at BYU.

They have been the exceptions. From 2000 through 2012, for example, BYU had six runners who claimed individual NCAA championships and chose not to pursue a postcollegiate career. That includes two-time NCAA champions Lacey Cramer Bleazard and Mackie. Erica Birk-Jarvis, who married and had a baby while still an athlete at BYU, was another talented BYU runner who didn’t pursue a pro career (but she also had the bad luck to graduate just as the pandemic struck). Mackie even resisted a potential professional contract after discussions with shoe companies.

Shea Martinez, an All-American 800-meter runner who married BYU basketball player Kyle Collinsworth, chose another path. She signed a contract with Nike’s OTC Elite club in 2017 and competed for a couple of unfruitful seasons. Then along came Morgan, Wayment and Anna Camp Bennett , who each won individual NCAA championships in 2021 and/or 2022. They signed contracts with shoe companies and pursued a professional career. Morgan and Wayment are now Olympians; Bennett, who competes in one of the deepest events in the nation, finished 13th in the 1,500-meter run at the Olympic trials and didn’t make the team.

Morgan and Wayment are only the fourth and fifth women from BYU ever to qualify for the U.S. track and field team, joining Jenkins, Palmer and Hogan.

“Shea showed the way,” says Bennett. “It was not something that was being done. There are certain expectations to start a family. I have not been pressured one way or another. Nobody says anything. It just wasn’t done. It’s just the culture, the thing you do.”

“I think a lot of them wanted to start a family,” says Ed Eyestone, who oversees the BYU track program. “I also don’t know if there was as much money available for them at the time to allow them to continue.”

When asked why BYU’s top female athletes didn’t continue their careers, Pat Shane, the former BYU women’s distance coach, said, “It’s actually a really good question. Here’s my opinion after 38 years of coaching these women. One, some are married and want to start a family; two, some are married and follow their husbands to a new job or graduate school; three, some feel they are ready for something new besides running. Most of these were not able to get sponsored and needed to work.”

The pull of athletics and motherhood is something Morgan has wrestled with for years, and she has not completely come to terms with it.

“It’s something I think about a lot,” she says. “My main goal is to be a mom. We (she and her husband Mason) want a family.”

Like her peers, she was encouraged by Diljeet Taylor, their BYU coach, cheerleader and mentor.

“She told me I can do both,” says Morgan, who counts her husband’s complete support as critical for her running career. “When you have a gift, you should magnify it. I always felt like I had potential. I wanted to see what it is. I didn’t feel finished after college. I felt like I had more. God gives us gifts to make the most of them. But I definitely question it, especially when I get injured.”

There is no shortage of examples of women who have managed both running and starting a family. Elle St. Pierre has been on a tear since having a baby in March 2023, setting an American record in the mile, winning the 5,000-meter run at the Olympic trials and placing third in the 1,500. Allyson Felix competed in the 2021 Olympics following the birth of a child. Kate Grace made the final in the 800 at the recent Olympic trials after giving birth to a son in 2023. Kiera D’Amato, who began training with Eyestone this summer, set an American record in the marathon at the age of 37 two years ago after giving birth to two children.

“Some say you can do both,” says Mackie. “I agree with that. Completely.”

She chose otherwise. Mackie married before the 2011 season, when she had two years of NCAA eligibility remaining. She decided then that 2012 would be her last. Instead of running, she decided she would spend the 2013 school year serving an internship as a school teacher and try to start having children.

“I had always wanted to be a mom,” she says. “My mom instilled it in me. She was such a great example to me of what a mother could do, and the opportunities you have to help your kids and help improve the world that way.”

She had a brilliant season in 2012, winning the 800 at both the NCAA indoor championships and the NCAA outdoor championships, leading the latter wire to wire.

”In the last 100 meters I told myself, ‘Don’t lose this; this is your last race, give it all you have,’” Mackie told Y. Magazine years ago. She finished with a career-best time of 2:01.06. It wasn’t quite her last race, though. Two weeks later, she competed in the U.S. Olympic trials. She survived the first round, but failed to advance out of the semifinals. She was done at the age of 22.

“I always felt blessed for having made that decision,” she says. “I had a dream season. At the end of it I felt so grateful I was able to perform. I was at my peak. I stopped there. I felt I was given an ability in 2012 because I chose that.”

There was also another factor, one she discussed with Shane at the time. “I had been running competitively since I was 8,” she says. “That made 14 years of running. I feel in life sometimes people are ready to move on to their new adventure, which is what I felt at the time. So motherhood was definitely part of that adventure, but also just trying new things, resting my body, etc.”

Does she ever wonder what might have been?

“Omigosh,” she says. “Sometimes. I think it would be an interesting thing if I could see what I could’ve done. Watching (the trials) this year I was thinking about it. But then, for me at the time, there was the internship and I got pregnant that year … So I’ve never looked back. It’s difficult. Female athletes are faced with more challenging decisions than males, wanting to be a mother and carrying the children and so forth.”

For her part, Morgan, who has one more year remaining on her original contract with Adidas, has also made some peace with her own choice. “It (motherhood) is on our minds,” says Morgan, referring to her husband and herself. “But it’s been cool to see the blessings and the lessons learned. Running has taught me so much, teaching me attributes I want as a mother and teaching me to be resilient, hard working and to have no regrets. Running has helped me become who I want to be, to be that example for my kids if I’m fortunate enough to have them.”