Katy Jay, a senior in the ILR School, made headlines in the spring for her sprinting performance on the Cornell track team. Jay came to Cornell having been named Nebraska state champion twice in the 100- and 200-meter events in high school, in addition to setting the state records for those events. Her performances continued to improve with each season, and coming into her junior year, the coaches predicted that “with a healthy season, she should be a dominant force in the east.” More than just a dominant force, Jay blew the competition away. The accolades began February 14 when she was named the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s Division 1 Women’s Track Athlete of the Week following her performance at the USTCA Challenge Cup, held at Penn State University in early February. During the meet, Jay set two individual Cornell records (in the 200- and 60-meter races, with times of 24.16 and 7.63 seconds) and also ran the anchor leg on a record-setting 4x400 relay. At the Indoor Heptagonal Championships early in the season she helped the team pull in a win and was named Athlete of the Meet.

In May, Cornell had an outstanding performance at the Outdoor Heptagonal Championships. Cornell pummeled their competition, winning with a total of 187 points, a full 78 points in front of their competitors. The Cornell women’s track hadn’t won the competition since 1997, and placed fourth in the competition in 2001. Jay finished first in both the 100- and 200-meter sprints, and came within .09 seconds of beating the Heptagonal record in the 200-meter sprint, with a time of 23.99 seconds. She also ran the winning leg on the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. At the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships, she won the 100- and 200- meter events and earned All-East honors. At the end of the season Jay was named the Northeast Region Women’s Outdoor Athlete of the Year by the US Track Coaches Association in recognition of her accomplishments throughout the year. The 2002-2003 season starts up again in December, and track fans look forward to more spectacular performances from Jay.

How does Jay maintain her workload at ILR when such a heavy training schedule keeps her on the track more hours than she is in class? “It obviously makes me ponder the question of whether I’m a student-athlete or athlete-student,” she says. In the spring she travels three out of every four weekends for competitions, and on top of it all, she has a part-time work-study job. “At times, it can be very difficult to keep up with school,” she admits, but credits her coaches with allowing her time off when needed. Jay has maintained this hectic pace since the beginning of her career at Cornell. “[W]hen people ask me how I do it,” she says, “my very simple answer would be that I manage my time and most of all I love what I’m doing here.”

—ILR Connections, Winter 2003