Last Saturday, former Rice Owl tennis player, and runner, Sean Wade, broke 3 American records (in the 12K, 15K, and 10 mile) for the 55 year old age group.

USATF article.

(02-12-2021 03:08 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Last Saturday, former Rice Owl tennis player, and runner, Sean Wade, broke 3 American records (in the 12K, 15K, and 10 mile) for the 55 year old age group.

USATF article.

Sean was one of the Rice alums who competed at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (in the marathon for his native New Zealand). The Atlanta Games had the largest Rice Olympic contingent ever, and three Owls were finalists: 400m hurdler Rosey Edeh for Canada (competing in her 4th[!] Olympics); discus thrower Adam Setliff for the US; and runner-turned-rower Heather McDermid for Canada (silver medal in the women's 8). I'm proud to note that I saw every one of those finals in person.

Earlier that summer, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Sean, Rosey, Heather, and the other Rice Olympians for a feature story in Sallyport magazine. That was in the days before cell phones, and Heather (who was in full training mode at Canada's training center at the time) and I (who was rarely at my desk) played an excruciating game of international phone tag before we were finally able to talk. I well remember -- and am grateful for -- her patience!

Sean was the easiest one to reach -- he lived right here in Houston and I think I reached him on the first try.

By the way, Heather is Rice's only female Olympic medalist -- and she did it twice, as her 8 also won the bronze in Sydney in 2000. It seems like she should be more famous among Rice alums and sports fans than she is.

All 3 of them (Sean, Rosey, Heather) had interesting backgrounds before getting to their Olympic peaks. Sean Wade was originally a tennis player at Rice, and as I recall, he did so well in the offseason mile workout program under Larry Turville that Steve Straub convinced him to switch over to track and field full-time. I may have the details slightly wrong but I know he was originally a tennis scholarship athlete at Rice. By the way, is he in the Rice Hall of Fame yet? If not, he absolutely needs to be as he may have accomplished more in his athletic career post Rice than any athlete in Rice history (and yes, I'm considering Rice's top professional athletes in that statement).

Rosey transferred to Rice from Fresno State. And I have to disagree with WRC the other day when he said he thought Allison Beckford was the top women's track athlete in Rice track and field history. I'd put Rosey or possibly Andrea Blackett ahead of Beckford. I know Beckford had the NCAA titles, but Rosey and Andrea had very high NCAA finishes of their own - and much stronger post-Rice athletic careers.

And Heather was also a Rice track athlete (a really good 800 meter runner) who switched to rowing after she was done with college. I think her twin sister Jill was already competing in that sport for Canada when Heather switched sports.

Cool stories, and congrats to Sean on the records.

Another national record this morning (for 55-59 age group) - 26:11 for 8K (~5 miles).

(02-12-2021 07:40 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  By the way, is he in the Rice Hall of Fame yet? If not, he absolutely needs to be as he may have accomplished more in his athletic career post Rice than any athlete in Rice history (and yes, I'm considering Rice's top professional athletes in that statement).

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...w/viewform

WRC - you might want to seriously fill this out for Sean Wade. I really don't know enough about his accomplishments to do so. Another one that would be nice to get into the Hall of Fame is Tricia Bowen, posthumously (I don't believe she's in the Hall of Fame already?).

I looked at the list: https://riceowls.com/sports/2019/1/23/ha...px?id=4594

She's not on there.