Making Something Out of Nothing - Part One

April 24, 2012

By Jeremy Hawkes, Arizona State Media Relations

This is Part One of a three-part feature series on Arizona State track and field star Daniel Auberry.  Auberry, a student-athlete who had no running experience before coming to college, is one of the premier sprinters in the Pac-12 Conference.  This feature series chronicles his rise to the top of the track and field world and the struggles that came with the journey. Part Two of the series can be found here while Part Three is located at this link.

When he steps into the blocks for the 100-meter dash, clad in his Sun Devil track and field uniform and iconic sunglasses, Daniel Auberry looks every part the Pac-12 point-scoring sprinter that he is.

A couple years ago, however, had you asked Auberry where he saw himself in five years, he likely would have told you he saw himself as a starting guard for a collegiate basketball team somewhere in the country. 

Instead, he finds himself as one of the key figures on an Arizona State University men’s track and field team hunting just its second Pac-12 title in school history.  

While there are no shortage of football-track hybrids at the NCAA level, the chances of finding an exceptional basketball-track talent is far less frequent.

“Basketball was my first passion,” said Auberry, who played prep ball at Alta Loma High School in Long Beach, Calif. “My friends always told me to come out to track, but I wanted to focus on basketball.”

And at first, it appeared that that would be Auberry’s true calling.  A second-team All-Conference member in the prep ranks in 2006-07, Auberry had a few scholarship offers from some lower division NCAA programs – including Cal State Long Beach – and some local community colleges.  

When all was said and done, Auberry found himself at Riverside Community College where he was discovered by RCC track and field head coach Jim McCarron.  McCarron convinced Auberry to come out to the track and Auberry obliged, simply wanting to “see how fast he was”.

It wasn’t long before the wins started piling up and Auberry realized the talent he had there and decided to drop basketball and continue his career on the track. 

Two years later, the offers started rolling in as Auberry found himself as one of the top-ranked junior college recruits in the country.  Auberry chose Arizona State over numerous scholarship offers and now finds himself as the 31st-ranked student-athlete in the nation at 100 meters while also running the leadoff leg on ASU’s fourth-ranked 4x100-meter relay team. 

Rising to the Top

From the beginning, Auberry turned some heads with his lightning quick speed everywhere he went. 

“Every sport I played, I was always the fastest guy out there,” Auberry said. “Even when I was little and would run around the store, my mom could never catch me.” 

That was the kind of talent that McCarron saw in Auberry when they recruited him to the track team at Riverside Community College, even despite Auberry’s affection to basketball. 

“As coaches, we are paid to have a really good eye for speed and talent, it’s part of our job,” McCarron said. “He had this amazing lift out of the box and his ability to accelerate put him on top of our list as a recruit.” 

Daniel Auberry earned scored points at the Pac-12 Championships at 100 meters last year.

Auberry joined the team as maybe the third-best runner on the squad but by the end, McCarron said, he was the best.   Auberry took fifth in his first complete year as a runner at the California State Championships at 100 meters in 2008 before taking third in the event in 2009 and runner-up honors at 200 meters the same year. 

By that time, it wasn’t the heads of JC coaches that he was turning, but the heads of several prominent Division I programs as well.  But even with all the attention, Auberry was drawn to Arizona State because of its proximity to home as well as its ability to make him feel like part of a family. 

Even so, Arizona State wasn’t really part of the recruiting process until late in the game for Auberry, who had offers from powerhouses such as USC, LSU and Oklahoma.

It wasn’t until Auberry shot an E-mail to ASU sprints coach Ronnie Williams to express his interest that Williams looked into the up-and-coming junior college recruit and was immediately impressed with what he saw. 

“I looked at his JC times with due diligence,” Williams said. “When I found out he didn’t compete in high school, I was more intrigued and when I saw some footage of him running, I really pushed forward hard to get him here.” 

When Auberry took his visit to ASU, though, he knew he was home.

“Coach (Greg) Kraft brought me into the middle of the circle at a team meeting and told my story,” Auberry remembers. “As soon as we had that meeting, everyone on the team showed nothing but love and I never felt like that with any of the other schools.”

Auberry told Kraft and sprints coach Ronnie Williams that he wanted to sign right there on the spot. 

Since then, Auberry has wasted little time making an impact.  After scoring points for the Sun Devils at the 2011 Pac-10 Outdoor Championships, he posted one of the top-five fastest times in school history at 60 meters earlier this season during the 2012 indoor campaign. 

"I never thought I'd make it to a Division I University to play sports." Daniel Auberry

Despite just narrowly missing out on a bid to the NCAA Indoor Championships, Auberry has posted outdoor bests of 10.34 and 20.99 at 100 and 200 meters this year, respectively, while also helping the 4x100-meter team to a top-five mark in the nation. 

“He is tremendously talented and has helped us to become, in my opinion, the best overall sprint team in the conference,” Williams said. “His ability to be Daniel and be light-hearted but also to come out and work to get better everyday at his craft has made him a mature, common force to do what we want to do on this team.” 

Auberry will be a key player for the Sun Devils at the Pac-12 Championships in Eugene, Ore., in May in all three events and likely will have a chance to make some noise in one event or another at the NCAA Championships in June.