Brittany Brown - USA Track and Field

In her first professional race overseas, sprinter Brittany Brown placed dead last. She wanted to quit right then, but after deciding to stick with her sport and changing her mindset, she eventually won a silver medal in the 200m dash at the 2019 World Championships. Read more about Brittany’s opportunistic approach to her career and thoughts on overcoming the athlete perfectionist mindset.

A lot of my family members play basketball. My sister actually played professional basketball overseas, and my twin brother played basketball as well. Basketball requires a certain level of coordination and I don't have that – I wasn’t graced with that gene. 

We had a school-wide, small-scale track meet in elementary school. And I was fast. I was beating people – it felt amazing. Track came easy to me. All I had to do was run a straight line – and if I could do that, I was good. But then I took some time off, and I really didn't get back into it until high school. 

I never imagined running professionally. My sister went to college to play basketball and she got a scholarship, and I was like, “I don't want to pay for school. My parents can't afford it.” So, I really wanted that scholarship. I had no intention of running professionally. I remember my junior year in college, I raced some pros and I beat them, and I was like, “Okay! I’m low key good.” It gave me that boost to think that I could do it and pursue it as a career.

My senior year of college, I struggled trying to figure out next steps. I didn’t know if running professionally was the right thing for me. I had only made two NCAA finals and people who get signed off the bat with shoe contracts are making finals consistently, they are making teams, they’re doing this and that. I didn’t do any of that. I clearly had some apprehension but I said to myself, “I'm doing it so here we go. Let's just see how it goes and the work and trusting myself paid off.

So, like I said, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was younger. I had watched the Olympics, I thought it was cool, but I didn’t know if I wanted to run track or not.  My first memories of the Olympics came from a video  recently sent to me by my little brother I had a little iPod nano, and I recorded myself – it was basically a monologue of my reaction to watching Michael Phelps compete in his last Olympics  “ I said something along the lines of “Michael Phelps, I just watched you, you're so amazing. I want to be like you a day, you reached all your goals and I hope to do that one day.” 

It was so cool watching him hold up the flag. And that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Even watching the Olympics when I was younger, I remember thinking, “Wow, they get to hold up the flag behind them. That’s amazing.”  The first time I did that was at a meet in Belarus it was unforgettable, and it’s those milestones that truly leave an impact. 

After making the final in the USAs (which is like the USA National Championship). My agent at the time thought it was best I go overseas to get my feet wet on the circuit. So, I flew overseas for the first time. My first meet was in Switzerland, and I was super excited because I thought I was going to beat everyone, I got dead last and I called my coach crying – I told him I wasn’t ready to run professionally, I said that I couldn’t do it. He reminded me that it was my first time overseas, this whole experience was a first for me. But I remember thinking after that race, “I don’t want to be a professional if this is what it entails.”  

However, I began to see gradual improvement during my trip overseas. I changed my focus on the fact that track had afforded me a scholarship and a chance to go overseas for the first time… I thought, “I have a talent and I should use it.” I also maintained hope that it will turn around and it did.

I think as athletes we want to be perfect, we're always striving for perfection. And I remember my senior year of college. It was extremely hard because not only was I trying to figure out what my step in life would be, but life itself was hard. I still had school. I had an internship. And I was also trying to perform well on the track. The worst thing I did was isolate myself. I think the athlete mindset is good, because it puts pressure to reach goals and not all pressure is bad, but sometimes you can let that perfectionist mindset overcome you and it’s easy to tell yourself you have figure it out all by yourself – BUT we're humans and we're not meant to be perfect and we’re not meant do this life thing ALONE. If I were to give myself advice, I would tell myself the athletic mindset is great, and it is a good fuel to the fire. However, as much as it puts a fire under you, it should not burn you – don’t let it burn you, you are so much more than an athlete and asking for guidance, having a hobby or tightknit friend group or whatever feeds your soul outside of your sport for will only improve the athlete in you.