As she’s proven throughout her career, it’s almost a given that recent New Balance Nationals 60-meter champion Lisa Raye will continue to win races and break records against national-caliber talent for the upcoming outdoor season. That’s just what she does when the competition is at its fiercest.
The same will likely happen next year and the years moving forward.
It just won’t happen while wearing a West Warwick singlet.
Ocean State Running learned on Monday that the Georgia-bound junior will graduate early from West Warwick and will start her first year of college eligibility for the Bulldogs this coming fall.
According to Raye’s dad and strength coach Linus Raye, the decision to move on to the collegiate level involved a few factors. The first and most important was competition. While our state has produced some talented individuals in the sprint events, it wasn’t at the caliber where the multiple all-stater and national champion would get the optimum benefits.
“Competition was number one,” he said. “We had to travel in order to get the caliber and level of competition that we needed in order to get better.”
Another reason for the decision was the Wizards’ sprinter’s overall health, factoring in the often grueling high school schedule of an athlete like Raye, who has won 17 individual crowns in the last two and a half years. This past winter, Raye has competed in more that a dozen meets, including out-of-state competitions like the VA Showcase, Millrose Games, New York International Showcase and the Marine Corps Holiday Classic.
“When you look at the track & field schedule and the meets, typically she’s doing three or four different events,” the elder Raye said. ‘When you look at that where she is doing three or four events for two to three years, I had to consider her health. When I talk about her health, I had to take into account the what-if’s. What if we come back to West Warwick and she gets hurt and that jeopardizes her scholarship? We’re thinking in terms of her future. I wanted to make sure that we’re able to secure her scholarship.”
The third, and final factor, is resources. A Division I program like Georgia has all the amenities for top-tier athletes like Raye. Those resources can certainly make a difference. At this past weekend’s NCAA Track & Field Championships, the Bulldogs grabbed runner-up honors in both the men’s and women’s meets.
“I had to compare the resources,” said Linus Raye. “West Warwick has been great but in terms of the resources, the equipment, it was a no-brainer. As good as she is, when I look at the NCAA championship, just to place this past weekend, she’s still at the bottom of the 200 and the 60. Those girls are running like a 7.03, 7.04 (in the 60m), stuff like that. As good as she is, she still needs that professional training and those resources to get better. I thought it would be best to put her in that environment because it’s going to take her about two years or so for her to transition, and make the adjustment. I think we’ve maximized our knowledge, myself and (head) coach (Jeff) Parenteau, as far as getting her to this point. But I think to get her to the next level, we need the professionals to do it. We need people like (Georgia) coach Caryl (Smith Gilbert), and (assistant} coach Daryl Shaw there. You have to recognize your limitations and I think it’s best for her to go on.”
So how is Raye able to essentially skip her senior year of high school? Once it was evident that she had a realistic chance to excel as a collegian and further (think Olympics and a professional career), Linus Raye was already pro-active in ensuring that it could be possible for his daughter to enter college a year earlier.
“Looking ahead, we go back to last year, I knew this was something that I might want to happen,” Raye said. “West Warwick has what they call a dual-enrollment grant with CCRI (Community College of Rhode Island). Going back, they [older sister and senior star Xenia Raye and Lisa Raye] started taking college courses while they were in high school because we knew this might be a possibility. Their college courses that are accepted by the high school, those credits are also going to transfer to the University of Georgia. When they get to Georgia, they’ll have like nine credits already to make the transition even easier.”
To officially make the transition with the right amount of credits to graduate, Lisa Raye will need to take just one more course in the summer, a college-level English class. She’ll receive credits at the high school and college for the course.
