TCU receiver Skye Dawson gave up on track and field to concentrate on football — at least for two seasons. That’s about all he could muster.
The thrill of the race was too much for Dawson, who will be a senior this fall. Dawson was back competing for the Horned Frogs’ 4×100 relay team in the spring after sitting out the past two years to concentrate on football.
He wanted to bulk up and do more weight training for football, not exactly the best thing for sprinting.
As a freshman, Dawson won the Mountain West indoor 60-meter dash championship with a time of 6.69 seconds. He also helped the 4×100 relay team take the league outdoor championship. The weight training after his freshman year was not conducive to sprints, so he gave it up.
“It just tightened up my legs for track,” he said. “You definitely need to stay limber. I’m able to go all out on lifting, especially squats. I was never able to squat throughout high school.”
Dawson remained limber on the football field in 2011. He was second on the team with 45 receptions for 500 yards and five touchdowns. He also returned 12 punts, with a long of 42 yards, and four kickoffs, with a long of 47 yards.
Dawson’s father, Gary, played baseball in the Oakland A’s organization in the 1980s and his mother, Rhonda, was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
Running fast always came naturally to him. He was the national champ in the 200 hurdles the summer before coming to TCU in 2009. Dawson played other sports, including baseball as a young kid, but never loved it like track and football.
“It just got boring for me after a while,” he said. “To tell you the truth, my dad felt the same way, so he wasn’t too surprised. He was just really good at it.”
Running extremely fast is something Skye is really good at.
In his first race back with the TCU track team, the Frogs’ 4×100 relay team finished second at the Penn Relays.
“It’s good to have Skye back,” TCU track and field coach Darryl Anderson said after the race in late April. “He’s going to need some work, but we have plenty of time to get him comfortable, and the guys are happy to have him back.”
Dawson, who is majoring in graphic design, says running fast “feels normal.”
“I feel like I’ve been running like that all my life,” he said.