Time For Change? Quarles Can Handle It

Change is a regular routine in Maurika Quarles’ life.

The senior sprinter has had a lot of changes in her life, starting with her transition from high school and continuing through her choice of careers. Somehow she’s managed to keep herself on track through it all.

She finds time to balance her academics, track practice and meets and involvement in the criminal justice fraternity, Lambda Alpha Epsilon. In addition, Quarles is a member of Radford’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). Her service to the SAAC has been such that she was asked to join the Big South’s SAAC, which takes the best and brightest from each campus group.

“As a Student-Athlete it’s very hard to balance your time. Any athlete can tell you it’s not an easy task,” Quarles said. “And it may look like it, we may make it look simple. There’s a big time management thing there.”

Quarles chose Radford because she liked the campus because it is “small, but not too small.” In addition a student transition program helped show her the differences between high school and college life.

But not long after she had settled in at Radford, she had to deal with a change in college coaches. Originally recruited by Pat Connolly, Quarles had to adjust to a new coach when Glenn Terry, who had been an assistant, was promoted to Director of Track and Field and Cross Country.

Certainly there was a transition there because their methods are completely different,” Quarles said of her two head coaches. “They both emphasize team and hard work and effort. The difference in attitudes was a big adjustment, and I think that transition went well.”

Quarles, who has finished second in the 60 meter hurdles at the Big South Conference Indoor Meet three times, has established personal goals of making NCAA Regionals and Finals in addition to winning the Big South meet. She believes, that with Terry’s help, these are attainable goals.

“To qualify for Regionals would be great, it would be a goal of mine, it is a goal. Then to make Nationals would be an even greater goal,” she said.

A year ago, those goals wouldn’t have been obtainable. A chronic knee injury forced her to redshirt last year and still bothers her now. She believes the injury first occurred in high school when she accidentally stepped in a gopher hole, and it was aggravated once she started running cross country due to the terrain changes. She was in a cast for three weeks in high school after the injury occurred.

“The workouts have gotten a lot harder coming back from that injury,” Quarles said. “I’m still having problems and having to continue rehab. Once you injure yourself you’re always going to have that injury. There’s going to be aches and pains or soreness.”

Even though she knows she’ll have lasting effects from the injury, she still must act like a leader for the rest of the team. As a senior, she knows she’s looked up to, which has been a big change for her since her freshman year.

“I find that I have to push myself now so much more. I guess now I’m looked up to from the freshmen coming in as well as those who are still underneath me [sophomores and juniors],” she said.

But Quarles doesn’t see it as a change for the worse. It’s turned out to be something she is enjoying, but she knows she must always be at her best because younger eyes are watching.

“At times it can be very frustrating. There’s times when I think I’m not making the greatest impression on them, Quarles said. “I think it’s an ok thing to be looked up to by freshman.

“I don’t consider myself a follower, but I don’t consider myself a leader, but if I have to take that position, as I do now because I’m a senior, I really don’t mind it. I actually enjoy having to answer questions and being looked up to for advice.”

Now that she is a senior, she is preparing for another change, the move to the real world.

A Criminal Justice major with a minor in Spanish, Quarles originally wanted to become a police officer. But lately she’s been thinking of changing those plans.

“The plan was to join the police department, but now I’m not sure and I think I might join the service,” she said. “I just want to go into the field of law enforcement.”

Part of the reason for the interest in the military revolves around her long term plans. She wants to make sure that as her life changes more, she has a more well-rounded experience.

“I think going into the service might give me more experience to build up my toughness, she said. “My physical toughness and mental toughness. That might give me more experience and also make me that much more marketable than just going straight into the police department.”

At some point in her life, the challenge of facing big changes will settle down, but before that can happen she must face the transitions that lie ahead. But she is well equipped to handle it, that’s what experience will do. And change is one thing Quarles is definitely experience in.