Sewell Leaves Lasting Mark For Cougars
It’s The Franchise’s farewell.
They gave Francesca Sewell that nickname during her freshman year, partly as a play on her first name and partly because the women’s track team at Washington State had been in such disrepair that it was barely a blip on the Pac-10 radar without her.
The blip is now more of a blimp - an elite program in one of college track’s elite conferences.
And she’s still The Franchise.
Not a one-woman team, mind you, but the one woman who made the difference.
You come across them all the time - foundation athletes. The Cougars have had a few over the years anytime they’ve turned the corner in a particular sport. Steve Puidokas and Bennie Seltzer come to mind in basketball. Gerry Lindgren in track. Sarah Silvernail in volleyball. Pick your quarterback - Timm Rosenbach, Drew Bledsoe, Ryan Leaf.
Of those, Puidokas and Seltzer - and possibly Lindgren - arguably enticed more to follow.
In Sewell’s case, there is no argument.
“There were two recruits the year I came in,” she remembered. “The next year, there were 20.”
And they’re still coming. Already signed for next year’s WSU women’s team are four athletes ranked among the top 15 high schoolers in their specialities, including the nation’s No. 2 triple jumper, Blessing Ufodiama of Long Beach, Calif.
Best of all, Francesca Sewell will still be around to help them. She’s joining Rick Sloan’s coaching staff to tutor the sprinters.
But last things first - Sewell’s last Pacific-10 Conference meet this weekend in Eugene, and perhaps another NCAA trip after that.
It has not been an idyllic senior season for Sewell - or for the Cougars, who have been hit with a tsunami of injuries this spring. Last year, for instance, the Cougars cleaned up in the heptathlon at the Pac-10s; this spring, Ellannee Richardson, Whitney Evans and LaTroya Mucker were all wiped out by various hurts, though Sloan still scored with a couple of raw volunteers. Sharika Higgins, the most consistent sprinter this spring, is now hobbling; top shot putter Becky Potter has been out for the better part of the last month.
As for Sewell, she’s battled two nagging injuries - a hip flexor that limited her sprinting for nearly two months, and an ankle sprain that required another cortisone shot this week.
“You could look at it as a negative and most people would,” she said.
“It’s hindered me from competing, but it’s also built my mental ability to be able to know what I can handle and what I can’t. Some people never learn that.”
Still, just when she should be in a position to have less demanded of her, Sewell is being counted on more than ever.
Fine by her.
“Because of the type of person I am, I don’t think I ever looked at that as pressure,” she said. “To have the team riding on how well I can do in five events is motivating.
“Even now if you’d ask me what event I might like to give up to concentrate on the others, I can’t think of one to scratch. I want to do all five.”
In those five - the 100 meters, the 4x100 relay and the long, triple and high jumps - Sewell has been extraordinarily successful. In her three previous Pac-10 meets, she’s scored exactly 60 points - far and away the leader in the Cougars women’s all-time clubhouse.
And it all still comes as a shock to her.
When she arrived on campus from Kennewick’s Kamiakin High School in 1995 as Francesca Green, she “had no idea I had this kind of talent.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect to be the No. 1 sprinter or the No. 1 jumper, or the leader of the team. I felt I’d be a typical freshman, an underdog learning from all these other people and that maybe by my senior year, I’d be pretty good. What’s happened to me has been amazing.”
And a little ironic. Despite being the biggest impact athlete the program has ever seen - a 20-foot long jumper, a 40-foot triple jumper, an 11.55 sprinter - she does not own a single individual school record, though she did anchor the 44.50 relay the Cougars clocked in Tempe last year.
As much as anything, that speaks to the enduring team emphasis at WSU in what is generally considered an individual’s sport. However that plays on a national stage, it makes practice and meets a happier place.
“I think it’s pretty clear to the athletes who come here on recruiting trips that these are going to be friends you’ll have all your life,” she said. “It’s obvious the coaching staff makes it enjoyable. Kids don’t want to go someplace where you can’t laugh once in a while.
“By creating a team environment rather than an individual one, we are just as good in kids’ eyes as USC and UCLA. I know it’s something I thrive on. If I see someone else on our team do well, I want that, too.”
And yet wouldn’t it be nice, for a change, just to be a long jumper, to have that NCAA qualifying mark nailed down without having to dash off to the 100 or the high jump?
“Well, I’ve thought about that,” she said, “and if I just trained for the long jump or the triple jump, well, I think that would get boring. To just go out and long jump and go home? It just doesn’t seem natural to me.
“If I wasn’t all over the place, it wouldn’t be fun.”
You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.