SEATTLE - Since Maurica and Andy Powell took over the Washington Track & Field program last summer, a key component in building up the team's culture has been surrounding the Husky student-athletes with a staff that knows what it takes to succeed at the highest levels of the sport. That commitment extends to the volunteer assistant coaches that the Powells have welcomed to Montlake over the past several months.
 
That process began with Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz, who was a part of cross country practices during the fall season before heading to training camp with the Bowerman Track Club. Over the course of the fall and winter, four more first-year volunteers were brought on board, serving as examples of the type of work ethic needed to succeed both as an NCAA athlete as well as at the post-collegiate, international level.
 
They are also helping put Washington on the map as a training ground for Olympic hopefuls.
 
Sam Prakel and Amos Bartelsmeyer currently help Andy Powell and Chris Kwiatkowski with the men's distance runners, Tim Duckworth assists Associate Head Coach Toby Stevenson with the multis and jumps crew, and Alli Cash is dividing her time between assistant Maurica Powell with the women's distance runners and working at Seattle's Polyclinic.

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Sam Prakel and Amos Bartelsmeyer
Sam Prakel had things rolling at the end of his senior season at Oregon last year, winning the Pac-12 title at 1,500-meters and taking third in the NCAA mile final that season, and then making the USATF Outdoor final at 1,500-meters where he finished seventh. When the Powells made the move to Seattle, Prakel wanted to keep his momentum going.
 
"I had a few options, but my first priority was staying with Coach Powell," Prakel says. "I really liked his training, and he was figuring me out as an athlete as far as what training and race plans worked. The week of USAs we talked and I asked him if it would be okay if I followed him to Seattle, and he said that would be great.
 
I also really wanted to stay in the Pacific Northwest after college, because I liked the environment for training, you can run outside most of the year, so it was the perfect fit. I came to Seattle for meets a lot in college and really liked the city and the campus and I knew a couple other guys on the team here and knew it was a solid program. It's exciting to be around a college team and to have their enthusiasm about the season so I figured it would be a good transition."
 
Bartelsmeyer says his path to Seattle was a "bit more serendipitous." A seven-time All-American at Georgetown, Bartelsmeyer won six Big East titles indoors and out and reached the 1,500-meter final at NCAA Outdoors last spring while setting a mile PR earlier in the year of 3:57.53.
 
A year ago at this time, the goal of running post-college had slipped to the back of his mind due to some injury setbacks, but the strong 2018 season rekindled his desire and convinced him he still had untapped potential.
 
"At the end of my senior year I first had to make the decision to continue running and try to improve and access a level that I hadn't yet achieved, but I thought I still could," Bartelsmeyer says. "So when I made that decision, I looked around for where I might have some options to continue training. I looked at a couple different groups on the east coast, but I just sent Coach Powell an email out of the blue asking if he had any interest in coaching other post-collegiates because I had heard that Sam was going to stay with him. Andy said he would be open to it, and from there things just luckily fell into place. I drove out here from St. Louis, where I grew up. Since then it's been a process of getting to know Andy and Sam and trying to fit in with the group here and it's been really awesome thus far."
 
Going from Washington D.C. to Washington State has literally been a breath of fresh air for Bartelsmeyer.
 
"It's pretty much exceeded all expectations," he says. "Just from our front door there are multiple great places to run, we can stay soft surface for our entire run if we want to, it's never boring, there are a lot of places to drive to and you look around and have mountains in all directions. It's a refreshing atmosphere."
 
Prakel and Bartelsmeyer's partnership has been clicking thus far. On the same weekend in early March, Bartelsmeyer, who has German citizenship, finished sixth in the European Indoor Championships at 3,000-meters against an elite field. The next day, Prakel took part in a record-setting mile race in Boston, as he ran 3:50.94 in the same race where Yomif Kejelcha broke the World Record in 3:47.01. Prakel's time moved him to No. 5 in U.S. history indoors.
 
Going into the mile race, Prakel was just hoping to run close to his 3:54 personal-best. "I went in with little expectation, which maybe helped keep things light, and everything fell perfectly into place as far as pacing and running on such a fast track, and running against great competition," he says. "We all just got after it and the entire race I just stayed focus on keeping momentum and wasn't even looking at the clock during the race. I finished and saw 3:50 on the clock and was in disbelief."


Prakel following his 3:50 mile run in Boston via letsrun.com
 
"Maybe we both even surprised ourselves a little bit with what we achieved this indoor season," Bartelsmeyer says. "But we certainly thought the talent and the ability was there and we're just really excited to keep the ball rolling and keep helping elevate the UW program here."
 
While training at a high level, the coaching aspect comes into play less from holding a stopwatch, and more "just being around the team as a good example of what it's like to make running a priority, and what it takes to be successful," Bartelsmeyer says. "It makes that kind of dream more realistic and attainable."
 
"I think it kind of shows that professional runners are people to, and we go through the same struggles and the same ups and downs as college runners do," says Prakel. "As a college runner if you see that, you just know you have to keep working and everybody goes through the ebbs and flows."
 
The coming outdoor season is full of opportunities for the two, as the World Championships in Doha are the big prize on the schedule.
 
The two both have Worlds as the number one goal, "But really it's just about being competitive and putting yourself on equal footing with the top-level competition in the world," Bartelsmeyer says. "Believing that you belong there and can be there with 200 to go, I think that's the main goal for me this outdoor season."
 
Prakel also knows there will be a lot of steps needed to reach the World Championships.
 
"I think it's important to have multiple goals along the way so you don't put too much pressure on yourself. I think I put myself in a good position by getting the standard indoors so I have one less thing to worry about heading into USAs. But like Amos said, we want to be competitive on the world level, so running some meets in the summer besides USAs that give me that experience, whether it's a Diamond League meet or another meet in Europe, where you can get that experience competing against some of the top guys that we've all seen, that would be a cool experience."
 

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Tim Duckworth
Only two men have won both the NCAA heptathlon and decathlon titles in the same season. One was Olympic gold-medalist and World Record-setter Ashton Eaton, and the other was Tim Duckworth in 2018 for Kentucky. Duckworth is now training for the World Championships here on Montlake, continuing his partnership with Coach Stevenson that took him to the top of the NCAA podium.
 
"There was really no question I was going where he was going," says Duckworth on his decision to move to Seattle when Stevenson accepted the Associate Head Coach role at UW, "Stevenson knew that, I knew that. I was just going to go, because it's been working out really well."
 
"Having a coach that you trust, that's the main thing," Duckworth says. "If you go somewhere else you're going to have to find a new coach and it could take a year or two to fully develop that trust. It took time with Coach Stevenson to get where we fully trusted each other with what we were doing, and then we were fully bought in."
 
After struggling at a pair of NCAA meets in previous years, Duckworth had pledged to win both the indoor and outdoor titles as a senior, unaware that Eaton was the only athlete who had ever done that.
 
"I didn't know until I had actually done it," he says with a laugh. "But I had told Stevenson that was my plan that year, and for that to all happen; it's hard enough for (multi-eventers) to put together two good days (at nationals), and then also realizing my decathlon score also got me through to Worlds, it all fit together in such a great way to exit NCAAs.
 
"I started at the bottom, coming in scoring seven thousand points, so we've increased it by 1,300 points in four years, now we've just got to go a little bit further with it."
 
Coming up at Kentucky, Duckworth had some elite volunteer assistant coaches that he could observe and be inspired by. Olympic gold medalist and World Championship gold medalist Omar McLeod was on staff along with World Record-holder Kendra Harrison and another World Championship gold medalist in Kori Carter.
 
"I got to know Omar pretty well the year he was there, and just talking with him about how he went through it all, that was a big help," Duckworth recalls. "I watched Keni as she came out of college and went into the pros, how she embraced it. She's at a different level and in a different event, but I could still learn how they managed the transition for when I came out of college, and I think I've had a pretty good transition so far."
 

 
Duckworth holds British citizenship and competes internationally for Great Britain, and earlier this month he earned the silver medal in the heptathlon at the European Indoor Championships, which was a good starting point for the coming outdoor campaign. As with Prakel and Bartelsmeyer, Doha is the goal, with Duckworth already owning the qualifying score needed to make the British squad.
 
"The next big decathlon I'll be doing is Gotzis (in Austria) towards the end of May, so right now it's just working on a whole bunch of different things," he says. "I'm going to go to Mt. SAC and do some bits and pieces as a prep for Gotzis, then maybe a little stint in England leading up to the British Championships, and then Doha. So it's quite a different structure than I'm used to; I'm used to competing every other week at a pretty high level.
 
"We're tweaking things in my throws right now and figuring out how to put more energy into them. I've been working a lot with Santi (Washington strength coach Santiago Perez) in the weight room. It's all feeling good, it will just take some time for it to pick up."
 
Track and field has been such a big part of Duckworth's life that he hopes to remain involved once his pro career finishes. Working as a volunteer assistant allows him to get a feel for the coaching profession, and his partnership with Stevenson makes him able to help translate into action anything the coach might ask of the current Huskies.
 
"For instance," says Duckworth, "I'm a good high jumper, so I can jump with them and they can see what it is he's telling them. If anyone isn't quite getting something that he's saying, I can help out; after four and a half years I know what he's saying and what he's looking for."
 
Seattle, Duckworth says, "is completely different from where we came from in Kentucky, but I like it. The Powells have been really supportive with me being here, and me helping out when Coach Stevenson is at a meet somewhere.
 
"It has been a nice start somewhere new, but with the same coach, so we just picked up where we left off."
 

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Alli Cash
While Sam Prakel, Tim Duckworth, and Amos Bartelsmeyer all came to Seattle with their pro track careers mapped out, Alli Cash made the move first and foremost to get a different career up and running.
 
A five-time All-American for Maurica Powell at Oregon, Cash says she got a call from Powell to let her know she had taken the job at Washington.
 
"I was obviously very excited for her," says Cash. "I think right away I knew that I wanted to also follow her here, but I wasn't really sure what that would look like."
 
Cash first had to take a heavy load of organic chemistry to wrap up her studies in Eugene, as she completed a double major in Human Physiology and Psychology with a minor in Chemistry. After that, a couple knee surgeries followed, and Cash went home to Kansas to recover and consider her next step on a career path she hopes will lead to medical school. But the time away only stoked her passion to get back running, and Seattle still looked like the best option for both of Cash's passions.
 
"I texted Maurica and said, 'You know, I really want to be there, and I'm going to figure out a way to make it happen.' So that's when I started looking for jobs. I was thinking I wouldn't hear back for a couple months from the clinic I'm working at, but they contacted me three days later and asked if I could come for an interview, and I said 'okay!' So I called Maurica and said I was going to leave the next day and I drove from Kansas and did the interview and they offered me the job, and here I am."
 
That job is working as a scribe at the Polyclinic. "It's cool and unique," says Cash. "I am essentially shadowing, but I get to help the doctor with their charts, and they look them over and add anything that I've missed because they know a lot more than I do! But I get a lot of experience with a lot of different people. I've gotten to know the doctor I'm working with really well. It's long days but really exciting."
 
Cash wasn't sure how her return to running would go, but she wanted to help Powell and the Huskies in whatever capacity she could.
 
"How am I going to come out from knee surgery? Am I going to have complications?" Cash wondered. "And I told Maurica when I came, I said I'm either going to solely help you and be able to time stuff, or maybe I can jump in easy runs, but if I am able to run, will you coach me? So right now I've been able to run fifty-ish miles a week, which is pretty good, and I've hopped in a couple workouts for fun, but it's kind of just seeing what I can still do, and then helping the girls out any way that I can."
 
One area where Cash likes to lend a hand is in rehab—the drills and exercises the Huskies do before or after runs to improve strength and flexibility. Orthopedics and sports medicine is one of her interests for medical school, along with primary care. "I worked at a physical therapy clinic all last year, and I've taken a lot of those types of classes because I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist for years. So I'm able to help to observe and tweak any drills or exercises that I might see," Cash says.
 
Looking back on her college career, the moment that meant the most to Cash was Oregon's upset win at the 2016 NCAA Cross Country Championships, where Cash finished 14th overall and the Ducks won by a single point after coming into the meet ranked 12th.
 
"We were already a great team in terms of togetherness and sharing goals, but nothing had come together on the course until NCAAs," she says. "We had been working so hard but the pieces hadn't come together, and we knew what we were capable of. In the race, Katie (Rainsberger) and I ran almost the entire race next to each other, and I remember seeing Maurica on the course at 4k and she was saying, 'Everybody's so far up!' I remember crossing the line and seeing every single person cross the line so close behind Katie and I, and I thought 'Wow, we are killing it, whatever we just did was perfect, as good as we could have been today.'"
 

 
Being a part of a team striving for similar moments is what drives Cash to coach, and train, all while working a demanding new job in a new city.
 
"I think right now this is really good for me because I missed the running community and having a group and being involved that way, it's something I've been passionate about and has helped me develop as a person for so long. I just miss investing in other people and their goals too."