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STATESBORO – NaJ Watson got off to a great start.
It was the first meet of the outdoor track and field season for Georgia Southern, just a few weeks after the Eagles had finished fifth at the Sun Belt Indoor Championships. It was at the Black and Gold Invite, hosted by UCF in Orlando, Florida.
Watson came out of the blocks smoothly, turned on the jets and finished the 200-meter dash strong.
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New personal best, the fastest time in program history, the fastest mark in the country at the time (now tied for 64th), and it qualified the freshman for the NCAA Championship East Prelims this week. Watson will run in the first round Thursday at 8:45 p.m. at North Florida in Jacksonville. If she advances, she will compete in the quarterfinals Saturday at 7:50 p.m. A top-12 finish sends her to the National Championship Finals meet in Austin, Texas, June 7-10.
Usually in track and field, there is a bit of a build up towards posting top times. Rest after the indoor season, begin heavy training at the start of the outdoor season and taper off towards the end, ensuring bodies are rested and fresh to notch top times at the conference championship. That’s the conventional wisdom, but not much about the way Watson competes is conventional. She is merely scratching the surface of her potential.
“I've told her, I have no idea how good she's going to be,’’ says first-year head coach David Neville. “She is unbelievably talented, and just raw, raw talent. As a coach, it’s like, oh man, this is amazing. There's a whole lot more of this inside of her. And I don't have a clue two years from now where she's going to be, but I know it's going to be special.”
Watson did not start competing in track until she was in eighth grade. She used to do a lot of racing at recess in middle school or messing around with older cousins and friends in her neighborhood. One of her teachers noticed how fast she was and mentioned it to one of the track coaches. She had interest in soccer, softball and basketball, but those faded as track came to the forefront.
Former Eagle coach Kelly Carter visited her high school, Phillip Simmons in Charleston, South Carolina, and convinced her to come on a visit in February of 2022.
“I met all the football coaches, all the staff and everyone here and some of the members of the track team,” recalls Watson. “I really liked the campus. All the staff here in general, I thought were really nice. It felt like a family environment to me. I just decided to come here because I thought I could fit in.”
Carter resigned in May, and Georgia Southern turned the reigns over to Neville, an Olympic gold medalist who had just finished his fifth season as an assistant coach at Tennessee. Neville immediately began turning his attention to the roster and doing his research on the student-athletes who had committed.
“For us in track and field, it's pretty much the numbers,” says Neville. “The numbers don't lie. So you're able to see all right, there's some potential there with NaJ, and kind of see where we go from here. It's really hard in that short timeframe until I really get an opportunity to learn more about them as an individual, their characteristics and the type of person that they are.”