In her two years at Kansas, Nickesha Anderson has achieved historic accomplishments in the track and field world — some that earned her a spot on Jamaica’s 2008 Olympic team. Now, she has high expectations for her final season of outdoor track, which started with this week’s Kansas Relays.

Running has been in Anderson’s life since kindergarten and a tradition among the women in her family as well, beginning with her grandmother then her mother and now her.

Anderson first arrived in the states Fall 2005 in St. Louis at Missouri Baptist University. Anderson was offered several scholarships at different universities, including Iowa State. But Anderson had seen several brochures of Missouri Baptist and she had known one person who would be there, Maresia Pencil, a middle distance runner from Clarendon, Jamaica.

“I wasn’t going into an environment where I didn’t know anybody even though I was going to be away from my family for a long time,” Anderson said.

Anderson said she’d known Pencil since high school back in Jamaica. Both she and Pencil eventually transferred to Kansas and are currently roommates.

While at Missouri Baptist, Anderson held the record in the indoor 60-meter and 200-meter dash events and the outdoor 100-and 200-meter dash events. At the 2007 Kansas Relays, Anderson ran a season-best time of 11.29 seconds in the 100-meter dash, earning the victory and piquing Kansas coach Stanley Redwine’s interest.

Despite this, it would take until her junior year to persuade her to take her career to Lawrence.

“I was set to finish the year and I had met a whole lot of friends,” Anderson said. “It’s always hard for me to change in an environment that I’m really settled in with other people.”

Even though she had friends at Missouri Baptist, Anderson decided a Division I school could give her a new level of competition that she wanted.

“With the talent I had and everybody having seen it, I might as well just go ahead,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that even though there was competition at Missouri Baptist, it was nothing like Division I, so Anderson made the transfer to Kansas in Fall 2007.

Anderson remembers her first practice as being hard, but not too hard to handle.

“It wasn’t excruciating, but it wasn’t easy,” Anderson said.

Anderson was working under sprints coach Elisha Brewer; it was the first time in Anderson’s track career that she had worked with a female coach.

“It set the tone for whatever a man can do, a female can do too,” Anderson said. “She knows her stuff like anybody else and she can get the job done.”

Brewer remembers when Anderson first came to Kansas.

“She’s very talented,” Brewer said. “I had seen her run before and I was extremely excited about the opportunity to coach her. She respects the fact that I’m going to push her and get the best out of her.”

Anderson’s first meet at Kansas was at the Arkansas Invitational in January 2008. The track is a 60-degree banked track, which aggravated shin problems that she had battled throughout her running career. Anderson said the meet was a blessing and a curse.

“I didn’t hate it, but the bank track caused my injury to be severe the first time,” Anderson said.

Anderson persevered and ran the 200-meter dash in 23.77 seconds, earning her a victory and the school record for that event.

Weeks later at the Jayhawk Classic, Anderson broke the school record in the 60-meter dash running a time of 7.38 seconds.

“I had no expectations; I didn’t know what it was at the time,” Anderson said.

The most glaring highlight of Anderson’s first season at Kansas was at the Iowa State Classic in February. She not only got the victory in the 200-meter dash, but her time of 22.94 was the fastest time ran by a female in 2008 in the world.

Brewer said she was not surprised by Anderson’s feat because she could see how driven the sprinter was.

“I think no matter what’s going on with her, she’s not going to quit, she is not going to stop trying,” Brewer said. “I couldn’t say she was going to run the world’s fastest time, but I knew she was very ready to do something great.”

In outdoor, Anderson would have the same success, leading in the school’s 100- and 200-meter dash events. But it was that summer when Anderson got the opportunity of a lifetime: running for her homeland of Jamaica.

Jamaica’s track and field trials were held in June and the country took the top six finishers in each event to the Olympics. Anderson competed in her strongest events, the 100-meter and 200-meter dash.

Both Redwine and Brewer flew down to watch Anderson race for the chance to represent Jamaica in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The first day, Anderson competed in the 100-meter dash, placing seventh and just missing the cut. However, in the 200-meter, Anderson ended up placing sixth and making the team — something she wouldn’t find out until she was back in Lawrence.

Brewer called her with the news while Anderson was walking home from class.

“She was like, ‘You know you made the team right?’ and I was like ‘No, really?’” Anderson said.

It then took another phone call, this time from her mother, before she was convinced of the news. Finally, an e-mail asking for her shoe size and a visa to go to Beijing confirmed that she would be going to the Olympics to represent Jamaica.

“To be able to make it to the finals, that says a lot,” Brewer said. “It’s a very strong country in sprints; it shows that she’s one of the up-and-coming sprinters in her country.”

While in Beijing, Anderson didn’t compete in the 200-meter dash event, but was an alternate for the women’s 4x100 relay team. There were eight all together and Anderson was not one of the four chosen to compete. However Anderson still got to practice with them every day while there.

Even though she didn’t get to compete in any events, Anderson said representing her country in China was one of the proudest moments of her life. Getting to watch Jamaica clean house in the sprint events, winning 11 medals, six of them gold, only topped off the experience for Anderson.

“I think it was our year,” Anderson said. “You know how everybody has their year. We’re prepared, we were ready to go for it and that’s what we did.”

One athlete that people flocked to see was teammate Usain Bolt. Bolt earned the gold in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash and in the 4x100 relay. He broke the world record in the 100-meter dash, running it in 9.69 seconds, and ran the 200-meter dash in 19.30 seconds.

But Bolt’s success didn’t faze Anderson because she’s known him since their days in high school track in Jamaica. In Jamaica, there was an East division and a West division and Anderson and Bolt were both in the West. They didn’t attend the same high school, but they would be at the same track meets and travel back together.

“He is not, and never will be, a stranger to me,” Anderson said. “I’ve known him before he got to this stage in his life.”

Anderson said Bolt had always been in commercials back in Jamaica.

“Whenever I see him on commercials, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s my friend,’” Anderson said with a smile. “It doesn’t trip me out; to me he’s just a normal person.”

Making the Olympic team was one of Anderson’s top goals when she got to Kansas.

“I didn’t care what I had to go through to get to my goal,” Anderson said. “I did and I went there. Even though I didn’t compete, come 2012 I will be competing.”

Anderson said she would stay at Kansas after graduating to train with Brewer.

“I think we work well together,” Brewer said. “She trusts me, respects me and definitely does what I ask her to do.”

In the meantime, Anderson is finishing up her major, early childhood education going into special education. Anderson already has plans to train for the 2012 Olympics games in London while attending graduate school for her master’s degree.

— — Edited by Sonya English