TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Indiana State Athletics continues its year-long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX today by recognizing the life and impact of Sycamore Hall of Famer Holli Hyche.
ISU Athletics will be spotlighting a different pioneer or trailblazer every month starting in August 2022 and carrying through June 2023. The ISU Title IX series is brought to you in partnership with the Hamilton Center.
No sprinter – man or woman – has more NCAA Division I individual sprint titles than Indiana State's Holli Hyche when combining indoor and outdoor championships.
Hyche amassed her seven NCAA titles in just two years, while the others with seven – Carlette Guidry (1988-91) of Texas and Walter Dix (2005-08) of Florida State – accumulated theirs over a four-year span.
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 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.
Outdoors, Hyche repeated as 100-meter champion – but took second in the 200, as Merlene Frazier of Texas ended her streak of 49 consecutive sprint victories.
A 10-time NCAA All-American, Hyche was honored as both the 1994 NCAA Women's Indoor Track Athlete and 1994 NCAA Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year. She was also a two-time Honda Award recipient in both 1993 and 1994.
She was 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.
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