Brown makes tracks to Florida State
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Emily Brown achieved one of the region's most impressive athletic feats when, as a Fredonia High School senior, she earned an NCAA Division I scholarship to run at an Atlantic Coast Conference school among the nation's elite, the University of Pittsburgh.
Now, she's done it all over again.
Brown will start a new journey atop the national collegiate running scene, as she recently announced her commitment to Florida State University as a graduate transfer to capitalize on her remaining college eligibility.
This winter, Brown will compete in indoor track with the Florida State Seminoles, then she will redshirt the outdoor track season in the spring to preserve an entire year of eligibility across all three running seasons next year; cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. She reports to Florida State on Jan. 1 and will run for the Seminoles within days of reporting to campus.
Brown is set to graduate from Pitt later this month with a degree in Anthropology. With an extra year of eligibility granted to NCAA athletes due to the pandemic, Brown is utilizing the opportunity to begin working toward her master's degree, and Florida State was the spot she deemed to be the right fit to do so.
Florida State offers a master's degree program in Biological Anthropology, a unique program that Brown prioritized in her recruitment. Eventually, Brown hopes to work as either a professor or researcher in the field of biological archeology and anthropology, along with coaching.
"(Pitt) didn't have my grad program. That was a huge reason for my transfer," Brown said. "... My grad program is pretty specific. I knew that I needed to find a school that had that."
After entering the NCAA Transfer Portal, Brown had a few notable Division I programs rise to the top of her list through the recruiting process, including New Mexico, Utah, and finally, the Florida State Seminoles of the ACC. Brown said that staying in the ACC was a big contributing factor in her decision because of the level of competition she is accustomed to.
"The ACC is the most competitive conference in the country, particularly for women's distance running. You can't get competition like that anywhere else," Brown said. She hopes that her level of familiarity with the conference she has competed in for the past four years will help ease the transition to a new team.
After the NCAA loosened some of the restraints it previously had on athletes seeking to transfer to a new school, the NCAA Transfer Portal became a vital part of collegiate athletics. "Now, the Transfer Portal market is a huge thing in the NCAA because it's a lot easier for kids to move from school to school," Brown said.
Once Brown entered the Portal, coaches from across the nation could easily contact her. Brown said her second recruitment, as a graduate transfer in the Portal, was a slightly different experience from her initial collegiate recruitment while she attended Fredonia High School.
"I didn't personally know a lot of people who had run in college, so it was very overwhelming. I really didn't know how to navigate the process," Brown said of her first recruitment, at Fredonia High School.
The second time around, it was easier for Brown because the coaches came to her with offers, rather than her needing to seek their attention herself.
"It made it a lot easier because I didn't have to go and seek people out. Mostly, coaches would just email me," Brown said. She also noted she had a better idea of what criteria to seek in a school the second time.
As a graduate transfer, Brown could still compete for Pitt while she was making her decision and she remained on track to graduate while planning her next steps. She received support from former and even current coaches at Pitt, who did not stand in her way of transferring, even within the conference.
"It was nice to have somebody who was on my side," Brown said.
The 2019 OBSERVER Female Athlete of the Year, Brown set a Fredonia record in the 3,000m and qualified for the 5K Nationals. Brown won the McQuaid Invitational and qualified for states in all three running seasons in 2019. She also competed in the NY State Federation Meet and the New Balance Nationals. Her success at Fredonia was unparalleled, but she quickly had to adjust to stand out once she got to the elite level of elite collegiate competition.
"It's been crazy. I came out of high school thinking that I made it to States, I went to Nationals, but you get to the ACC and everybody went to States, everybody won States, everybody went to Nationals," Brown said.
But she certainly adjusted quite well.
While at Pitt, Brown broke a school record in the women's 300m steeplechase with a time of 10:13.40 at the Raleigh Relays at North Carolina State University. She finished fifth overall at the event. Brown also finished in the top 10 in the steeplechase at the 2022 ACC Championships, which qualified her for the preliminary round of the NCAA Championship.
Brown's excellence also translated to the classroom, as she earned multiple All-ACC Academic Team honors throughout her time at Pitt.
Transferring from Pitt was "a really hard decision" for Brown to make, but she leaves with nothing but positive things to say about the place she called home for the past four years.
"At Pitt, that's where I really learned how to believe in myself as an athlete; to really bet on myself and think, 'I can run these times and be competitive against some of the best girls in the conference or in the country,'" Brown said. "Coming out of a small school, my perspective was a lot more narrow in high school. Coming to Pitt, being in the ACC and racing the best girls in the country broadened my perspective and gave me a lot of confidence."