Nicole Greene: Redshirting a champion

Story by Jonah Lossiah

Photos courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications

 

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina — There are many reasons for an athlete to redshirt.

Injury. Strategy. It’s most often used on first-year students who aren’t quite where they need to be when they enter college.

But Nicole Greene of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a special case.

The junior track-and-field athlete is coming off an incredible season. She posted one of the highest jumps in the country at 6 feet and 2 inches, was named first-team All-America, and brought home the 2018 indoor high jump national championship. That title was won after a seven-round jump off.

“I was happy I was able to persevere through it,” Greene said. “Once it was over I was finally able to relax. And it didn’t hit me that I won until after, and I was like, ‘wow, I’m finally done.’ It was like a marathon.”

After completing one of the best season in recent UNC track and field history, the soon-to-be 21-year-old from Ponte Verde, Fla., is redshirting her next indoor and outdoor seasons for 2018-19. She isn’t hurt, and the is prospering academically.
She’s training the for 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

“I’ve always wanted to make the Olympics, since like middle school,” Greene said. “So making 2020, right now that’s my end goal. If I make it, I’ll be completely content with my athletic career.”

This is a very real possibility for Greene. Though she is not quite there at this moment, two years is plenty of time to for her to refine her abilities and focus on her weaknesses. Right now, she is focusing on is clearing 6-feet-4.

“Hitting that in (Olympic) trials is usually about top 3, so if I could get that record I’d be in good shape,” Greene said.

It has legitimate Olympic potential, but that also happens to be the school record for the high jump. Tisha Waller, who graduated in 1991, set that record. And now that is one of the last milestones left for Greene in her UNC career.

She actually met Waller last year at the ACC Outdoor championships.

“It was unusually normal,” Greene said. “I usually put people on this level so that they’re not even human or something. But to talk to her and see how normal she was … I could see that she was just able to do it through hard work and sacrifice.”

The redshirt will do a lot for Greene outside of athletics as well.

“Another goal of mine is to become a doctor,” Greene said. “Redshirting this outdoor season, I got into the MED program here. So I’m able to do that as well.”

Her academics are no joke, and she’s doing everything she can to make it into UNC’s medical school. Greene will use this year to focus on school. Her coach, Nicole Hudson, said that one of her favorite stories from the season came at the end of the championship run.

“The first thing after she wins the national championship, we’re at dinner with her family, and she’s looking at me is just like, ‘I really hope that test went well,’” Hudson said.

Greene had to take an organic chemistry test the day before NCAAs.

“We were like, really? Really? You just won the national championship and you’re worried about your test?” Hudson said.

“That’s just Nicole,” said her teammate, Draven Crist. “Say if I jump 7-6, I’m going to be on the ground crying. But no. Nicole is like, ‘can I go home now?’ It’s like, ‘Nicole, please. Celebrate for a second, it won’t kill you.’ She’s just so academically sound, it’s insane. She’s a genius in every way.”

But for now, it’s training just like any other day. What is different is competition. Though she’s redshirting next year, she still isn’t allowed to compete for the team at the moment. So when she went to jump at the Duke Invitational, she had to adjust.

“You can go unattached,” Greene said. “So I drove myself there and competed in my USA spandex and crop top. It was weird.”

While she is not able to compete with the team, she is still allowed to train with the team. Greene will return to compete with the team for the 2019-20 season, and will continue to train with them all the way through the spring semester – just in time for the Tokyo Olympics.

Greene says that the best thing that this gap year will do for her is simply the pace at which she can now train.

“It’s great knowing that I have time to do it and I don’t have to rush … and that it really is a progression,” Greene said.

The extra time also allows her to isolate each part of her training. If she needs to focus on her steps, she can do that. If more time in the weight room is the answer, that’s what they’ll do.

Nicole Greene feels on top of the world. Awards are stacking up, and she has been constantly getting attention. But through it all, she just wants to stay humble.

“It’s funny, a lot of people think that, right now, I’m very level-headed with the things that have happened … but I feel if I made it to the Olympics I’d start crying.”

Two years is a long time to wait and train, but Greene says that she is ready for the journey. Whether it’s medical school or jumping in Tokyo, she knows that she’ll be happy where she is.