Legendary Indiana State sprinter Holli Hyche will forever have her name etched in history, as the Sycamore alum was selected to the Collegiate Athlete Hall of Fame for track and field and cross country, the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association announced Wednesday afternoon.
Hyche is one of 14 inductees for the class of 2023, which is chosen on accomplishments while competing as a collegiate athlete and displays excellence in collegiate track and field and cross country at its very best.
A two-time NCAA Track Athlete of the Year and two-time Honda Award recipient, Hyche's career at Indiana State is arguably the greatest ever by a collegiate sprinter, male or female. She won seven individual national championships in a two-year span, the most by a sprinter in NCAA history. Hyche
Hyche won four of the titles as a junior in 1993, becoming the first woman since LSU's Dawn Sowell in 1989 to complete the indoor 55-200 double, followed by the outdoor 100-200 double in the same year. Hyche was particularly crushing in the outdoor 200, winning in 22.34 to eclipse the meet's low-altitude best of 22.47 set by Florence Griffith of UCLA 10 years earlier.
As a senior, Hyche added to her legend with three more crowns. Indoors, she doubled up in the 55 and 200 once again, joining Texas' Carlette Guidry as the only other female athlete with such a pair of sweeps. The Sycamore was exceptionally historic in the 200, where she turned in a 22.90 performance to lower Sowell's five-year-old meet record of 22.90. Hyche added another outdoor title that season in the 100.
A 10-time NCAA All-American, Hyche was also a five-time MVC Indoor and Outdoor Track MVP and was a 14-time Gateway Conference/Missouri Valley Conference Champion while with the Sycamores. At the end of her collegiate career, Hyche was the MVC and ISU record holder in the 55-meter, 60-meter, 100-meter, 200-meter, and 400-meter events at the time of her graduation.
Beyond her time at Indiana State, Hyche was a two-time Olympic Trials participant in preparation for both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.
Hyche is one of just three athletes, male or female, to have won all four NCAA Sprint Titles in the same year, accomplishing the feat in 1993. She was inducted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame in April 1999 and was inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame in August 1999.
The Collegiate Athlete Hall of Fame induction ceremony is set to take place at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon on September 14, which is two days preceding the 2023 Diamond League Final, the Prefontaine Classic, September 16-17, in Eugene.
