Hurdler Akala Garrett honors her uncle by closing her high school career with two more national titles
University of Texas bound athlete Akala Garrett won the girls 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles at the 2023 Nike Outdoor Nationals at Hayward Field.
By Maddie Lang
Before stepping into her blocks, World U20 champion hurdler Akala Garrett paid homage to her late uncle, Dr. Eric Ward Sr., by touching her left shoulder, where she has a “Ward strong” tattoo.
Ward Sr. passed away in 2021. A week before his passing, he told his niece that she was going to win worlds.
“He told me what I was going to do and I did it,” said Garrett, a senior from North Carolina.
Garrett’s tattoo gave her some additional strength this weekend when she defended both her 400-meter hurdle and 100-meter hurdle titles at the Nike Outdoor Nationals at Hayward Field.
On Saturday, she won the 100-meter title with a time of 13.37. The runner-up, Nonah Waldron of Michigan, finished in 13.50.
On Sunday, she competed in the 400-meter hurdles. The first 300 meters were an even field, but once the home stretch came around, Garrett’s strength kicked in and she won the event in a time of 57.51. The runner-up, Sidney Green from Texas, finished in 58.45.
“It felt very controlled. It didn’t feel forced or pushed,” Garrett said. “I stayed in my own lane and focused on the finish line for me. It wasn’t about anybody else.”
In her high school career, Garrett won five Nike Outdoor Nationals titles and two World U20 titles.
“I try to keep count, but it’s kind of hard to keep count of all of those,” she said with a grin on her face.
At the World U20 Championships last year, she won the 400-meter hurdles and the 4x400-meter relay alongside MeKenze Kelley, Shawnti Jackson and Roisin Willis.
At the Nike Outdoor Nationals, she has won the 400-meter hurdles three years in a row and won the 100-meter hurdles two years in a row. She was runner-up her sophomore year.
“I kept saying, ‘Four times, four times,’ all day,” she said. “I had to make sure I came back and did what I needed to do to defend my title.”
While Garrett loses count of all the titles she has won, her shelf that holds the plethora of awards also feels the weight of them.
“I have a bookshelf, but I think I’m going to get a little hanger for them because they’re not fitting on the shelf anymore,” she said jokingly. “They’re falling down.”
Garrett heads to the University of Texas in August where she will join the 2023 National Champion Longhorns.
The team currently doesn’t have any strong hurdlers. Garrett knows she has a chance to make a name for herself at the NCAAs and add on to the legacy of Texas Track and Field.
“My main goal is to obviously make it to the NCAAs and add on to what Texas already has,” she said. “They just won the national title and they didn’t really have any hurdlers, so my goal is to add to that.”
Garrett looks up to several big names: Tokyo Olympic Champion and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levron, 2016 Olympic Champion Dalilah Muhammad, NCAA champion Britton Wilson and Diamond League champion Femke Bol.
“I can’t really pinpoint one that I look up to because they’re all phenomenal in different ways,” she said.
Garrett wants to make herself a household name just like the rest of theirs.
“Sydney is the queen. Britton is the collegiate queen. Femke Bol is the foreign queen. Dalilah Muhammad is the OG queen,” she said. “There’s so many queens. I want to be the young queen. So I’m trying to work my way up to get my name well known.”