Walton Started It All In The 800

Fast times were not likely in the women’s 800-meter final at the 1982 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Provo, Utah.

Cold, driving rain met the finalists for the inaugural championship race that featured two stars coming back from Friday victories – Oregon’s Leann Warren, who had won the 1500 meters, and Delisa Walton, who had anchored Tennessee’s collegiate record-setting 4×400 relay team with a 51.0 split.

Walton normally raced from the front, but the conditions forced her to tuck in behind others in an effort to seek shelter from the wind, and Warren followed suit. After a first lap of 61.9 by Tennessee’s Joetta Clark, Walton and Warren followed closely on the backstretch of the second lap.

When Walton made her move with 200 to go, Warren was boxed in by Stanford’s Regina Jacobs and just missed catching Clark as the Volunteer duo went 1-2 with Walton winning in 2:05.22.

“Whoever led, I was going to stay behind, and especially when it rained,” Walton explained. “I wasn’t going to take the lead because I couldn’t see.”

Less than a month later, Walton married Houston’s Stanley Floyd, who had won the NCAA 100 meters for the second time (his first came in 1980, when he was at Auburn). In 1983, Walton won the 600 yards and anchored UT’s 4×400 team at the NCAA Indoor Championships. In April she ended her senior season when she learned she was pregnant.

The couple’s first child, Ebonie, was born in October and forged an impressive career of her own, nearly joining mom and dad as an NCAA champ in 2007 when she finished second for Houston in the 100 – the closest a mom and daughter have come to being individual champions in the NCAA DI Outdoor Championships.