Daily Iowan

Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: Metro

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Click here to view photo slideshow (with audio)

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It was a 4x400-meter race around the jungle gym and past the oak tree. Natasha Kaiser-Brown was only in third grade, but it was her debut in the world of track and field.

But not even Kaiser-Brown could've predicted that years later, she would run the 4x400-meter race again - and become the second-fastest woman in the world.

She grew up in Des Moines, attending Roosevelt High School and running track for fun. She didn't know that professional running ran in her blood.

She grew up with unique parents, a teaching mother who was comforting yet still "hard-core" and a father who, at 80, says is still "rambunctious" and believed that she could do anything.

She recalled times when she would call home from a frustrating meet and tell her mother she was having trouble focusing.

"Well, get focused," her mother would reply.

"I kept thinking, 'You're supposed to be the nice one who buffers things,' " Kaiser-Brown said. "But then, when she would say that, it would get me focused. It was total support, total faith in whatever I did and at the same time they kept me very humble, which was rare."

Being a black athlete in the '80s and '90s wasn't that difficult, she said. Because of her fair skin, many people didn't even know what her ethnicity was, at least from TV. Once people saw her in person, she said, some people were "disheartened."

But she said her main concern was proving herself. Her black peers would say she was half-black and half-white, but her mother diffused the issue at a young age.

"When I was a real little baby, someone thanked my mom for adopting a white baby, like, 'Oh, that's so nice of you to adopt this white baby,' and she's like, 'Yeah, ain't she pretty?' " Kaiser-Brown said and laughed. "I wish I had some horror story, but everyone was so supportive."

Kaiser-Brown grew up with three older brothers who loved to tease her by putting her in trash cans and slamming her fingers in the piano covers.

Her two younger brothers were better, though, she said. They also ran track, as did a cousin from a nearby school. At one point or another, there could be three Kaisers running in the same race together.

"They kept you humble, too," Kaiser-Brown said. "It was like, 'You can't beat us, so no matter how fast you get, we'll be faster."

But by high school, Kaiser-Brown was getting really fast.

Only losing one race in her high-school career, the young athlete excelled beyond what she had ever imagined. She won nine state medals and four Drake championships, was Iowa's all-time leader in the 100-meter dash, and was a six-time All-American. In 1984, Kaiser-Brown tried out for Junior National Championship and though she didn't make the team, she did run the fastest 100-meter time in Iowa.

"I was like, yeah, I got something out of it," she said.

Kaiser-Brown said it helped a lot to work with coach Mike Wilson in high school. He was the same gym teacher who had first encouraged her to run in elementary school. Along with him, she had a good track coach who tried her on the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter relays to find which was best for her.

But before all of the awards, she never thought about track as a professional career - she and her friend always wanted to be veterinarians, she said. It was only when she realized that it was a seven-year college program to become a vet that she changed her plans and became an art history and archaeology major.

Kaiser-Brown attended the University of Missouri in 1984, where she ran for Rick McGuire. McGuire, now 50, says Kaiser-Brown was probably the best athlete he had ever had at that point.

"She was fast," McGuire said. "She was happy, and she smiled easily. When she started, her whole goal was to run faster and get better, and she did. She was among the best in the country."

McGuire stayed in touch with Kaiser-Brown long after she graduated and she joined a track club in California. With the team, she went overseas to Europe, where she ran in the Grand Prix Circuit and other major races.

"You could be in France on a Tuesday, and then Thursday, you could be running in Spain," Kaiser-Brown said. "The U.S. appreciates track and field but nothing like what they do over there. It's hard not to get caught up in the glamour of it, because you are celebrated."

In 1992, Kaiser-Brown attempted, for the third time, to make the Olympic team. After coming up short in 1988, she became an official Olympian, ready to go to Barcelona.

"I can tell you that when she made the team," McGuire said. "It was one of my biggest thrills ever. When she walked out onto the track for the first time, I got goose bumps."

After earning a silver medal in the 4x400-meter relay, things moved pretty quickly for Kaiser-Brown. She went on to get the silver medal in the World Championships, becoming the second-fastest runner in the world.

Then in 1996, she was back on the U.S. Olympic team in Atlanta even after seriously injuring her foot.

"The most amazing thing she ever did was making the Olympic team for the second time after having a crippling injury," McGuire said. "She was out for 15 months, and that was amazing. She wasn't able to train for about a year, that was the amazing thing,"

Kaiser-Brown married longtime boyfriend Brian Brown 16 days after the Olympics were over in 1992. Brown was a high-jumper for the same club she joined after college.

"We had so much in common that it allowed us to stay together and still have our careers," Brown said.

Once the couple had their first child, they were ready to move into a new and bigger house.

They were living in Missouri when Kaiser-Brown got a call saying that the Drake head-coach position had just opened up. She never expected to head back to Iowa, but only a few months later, the family was back in her home town, and she was coaching both the men's and women's teams.

"She has taught me to go for everything and take every meet like it's the last meet," said Drake senior Marcus Gaines. "She'll talk about the Olympics if you ask her, but she's not a person that will blatantly come out and say, 'I'm an Olympian.' You just know she has the experience, so you trust her."

Now that Kaiser-Brown and her family have settled down, with two more young boys and coaching jobs at Drake, she says she won't force her children to follow her and her husband's track and field path. And she says coaching collegiate track is not as easy as it seems.

"I want them to have their own experiences and not see it through my own eyes, because I didn't see it through anyone else's eyes - I saw it through my own," she said.

Whatever the case, Kaiser-Brown is using her work to "give back," Brown said.

"There couldn't be a better role model for people who are young minority women," McGuire said. "Around the country, she is a special person in track and field."

E-mail DI reporter Lauren Skiba at:
lauren-skiba@uiowa.edu

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Natasha Kaiser-Brown
• Born in 1967 in Des Moines
• Attended Roosevelt High School
• Won the silver medal in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona
• Was part of the Olympic team in 1996
• Is now head track coach for men and women at Drake University


Career Stats
• Born May 14, 1967 in Des Moines
• 5-9, 130 pounds
• Roosevelt HS (Des Moines) '85
• Missouri '89

Personal records (outdoor):
• 100 - 11.88 '93
• 200 - 23.36 '92
• 300 - 36.47 '93
• 400 - 50.17 '93

Personal records (indoor):
• 300 - 36.44 oversized '92
• 400 - 51.92 '89

History of US Nationals Results: 400 meters
• 1998
New Orleans, June 21
21 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Kim Graham (Asics) 50.69
2. Rochelle Stevens (RS) 51.07
3. Monique Hennagan (NC) 51.11
4. Toya Brown (Tx) 51.13
5. Shanelle Porter (USW) 51.17
6. Michelle Collins (unat) 51.19
7. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (HSou) 51.53
8. Maicel Malone (Asics) 51.91

• 1997
Indianapolis, June 14
20 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 49.40 MR
2. Kim Graham (Asics) 50.65
3. Maicel Malone (Asics) 50.74
4. Michelle Collins (unat) 50.77
5. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (HSou) 51.21
6. Shanelle Porter (USW) 51.22
7. Chandra Burns (MiSt) 51.71
8. Jessica Hudson (LaG) 52.23

• 1996
Atlanta, June 19
27 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Maicel Malone (Asics) 50.52
2. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 50.61
3. Kim Graham (Asics) 50.87
4. Rochelle Stevens (Pos) 51.16
5. Linetta Wilson (SBTC) 51.49
6. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (FLAC) 51.52
7. Nicole Green (Pow) 51.95
8. Youlanda Warren (unat) 52.10

• 1994
Knoxville, June 18
23 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (FLAC) 50.53
2. Maicel Malone (Asics) 50.77
3. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 50.78
4. Kim Graham (adi) 51.43
5. Michelle Collins (MizH) 51.63
6. Rochelle Stevens (NikA) 52.42
7. Sheryl Covington (FlSt) 52.60
8. Crystal Irving (Atoms) 52.80

• 1993
Eugene, June 19
21 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 50.43
2. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (Cheet) 50.93
3. Michelle Collins (Hous) 51.77
4. Terri Dendy (AndI) 52.13
5. Youlanda Warren (LSU) 52.21
6. Maicel Malone (Maz) 52.40
7. Rochelle Stevens (May) 52.56
8. Kendra Mackey (Maz) 54.80

• 1992
New Orleans, June 24
32 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Rochelle Stevens (NikA) 50.22
2. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 50.30
3. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (Cheet) 50.42
4. Dannette Young-Stone (Reeb) 50.46
5. Denean Hill (unat) 50.89
6. Anita Howard (Fl) 51.30
7. Lillie Leatherwood (Reeb) 51.31
8. Kendra Mackey (unat) 51.72

• 1991
New York City, June 15
23 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Lillie Leatherwood (Reeb) 49.66 MR
2. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 50.19
3. Diane Dixon (Atoms) 50.30
4. Maicel Malone (NikC) 50.39
5. Rochelle Stevens (NikI) 51.03
6. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (Cheet) 51.82
7. Celena Mondie-Milner (unat) 51.91
8. Tasha Downing (Maz) 52.65

• 1990
Norwalk, June 16
14 contestants, 8 finalists
1. Maicel Malone (NikC) 51.23
2. Rochelle Stevens (NikI) 51.51
3. Lillie Leatherwood (Reeb) 51.60
4. Natasha Kaiser-Brown (Cheet) 51.69
5. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 51.90
6. Delisa Floyd (Flo) 52.26
7. Wendy Watson (Ok) 52.53
8. Tasha Downing (Fl) 57.72

• 1989
Houston, June 17
15 contestants, 9 finalists
1. Rochelle Stevens (ACC) 50.75
2. Jearl Miles Clark (Reeb) 51.52
3. Celena Mondie-Milner (Il) 51.55
4. Terri Dendy (Reeb) 51.64
5. Lillie Leatherwood (Reeb) 51.75
6. Natasha Kaiser (NikS) 51.89
7. Sandie Richards' (Jam) 52.09
8. Michelle Taylor (Cheet) 52.17
9. Maicel Malone (NikC) 52.20

Source: www.trackandfieldnews.com

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