Fifty-one school records stood when Connie Teaberry took over the NIU Track & Field team. Seven years later, all but eight have fallen.

Teaberry participated in the 1992 Olympic trials, but success in DeKalb didn’t come automatically to the former sprinter. When the seventh-year coach originally came to DeKalb, the NIU Track & Field team was just three years removed from reinstatement. The program had been dormant from 1983 to 2001.

Shantel Twiggs ran the program up until Teaberry’s arrival in 2004. Much praise has been heaped upon Teaberry, but the former Olympian is quick to deflect any praise onto her predecessor.

“[Twiggs] got the program off to a great start,” Teaberry said. “She was here for two and a half years. After an 18-year hiatus, a lot of the things were left unfinished that she got started.”

Twiggs started to bring the program up to speed in her short time, but most of the work fell on Teaberry. Updating the training methods and equipment were first on Teaberry’s to-do list.

“The way track and field operates in general had changed over the 18 years,” Teaberry said. “Old records were bound to fall.”

As Teaberry’s vision for the program started to take shape, records started to fall. With each passing year, more of Teaberry’s pupils were being entered into the NIU record book. The records fell at a particularly vigorous pace last season. After the record-breaking campaign, Megan Gregory and Courtney Oldenburg represented NIU in the NCAA West Region Preliminaries.

Sprinter Rasheta Butler just recently smashed the 60-meter mark with a time of 7.75 seconds.

According to Butler, the record is partially a result of Teaberry’s encouragement.

“Connie went to the Olympics, so, if she sees potential in you, then you know you have something,” Butler said. “She pushes me and the rest of the team at practice every day to get the best out of us.”

Going into the 2010-11 season, Teaberry was more pleased with Butler’s growth as a person than anything else. She never doubted Butler’s ability as a sprinter.

“Rasheta’s success was bound to come,” Teaberry said. “She was a good person coming in and has grown so much. Her work ethic has never changed, which is why she has become what she has.”

Butler came to NIU as a walk-on, but has seen an emphasis from Teaberry on recruiting in recent years. The senior sprinter has seen the literal and figurative bar set higher with each passing year.

“Connie has done a lot of recruiting since I’ve been here,” Butler said. “More runners and more sprinters are here now, as opposed to when I got here. When I leave, people are going to see that this is just the beginning of how good this program is.”