Cameron, Guthrie, Russell inducted in NCAA Hall of Fame
Three Jamaicans including the first-ever World Athletics Championships men’s 400m winner Bertland Cameron have been inducted to the NCAA Hall of Fame Class of 2025 by the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association earlier this week.
They are Cameron, who attended University of Texas-El Paso, Diane Guthrie, who attended George Mason University, and two time World Under-20 sprint hurdles champion Gillian Russell-Love of the University of Miami.
They will join compatriots Merlene Ottey, of the University of Nebraska, who was inducted in 2022, and Trecia Kay Smith, of the University of Pittsburgh, who was inducted last year.
American 400m runner Suziann Reid of the University of Texas, whose parents are Jamaicans, will also be inducted this year.
Cameron won five NCAA Division 1 (D1) 400m titles — three outdoors and two indoors, and was the third man to win the D1 outdoor 400m title three times and was just 0.02 seconds away from being the first man to win the event four times.
The former St Jago stand out was a member of six of the Miners’ NCAA team titles (three indoor, three outdoor) from 1980-1983 and ran some outstanding times including 44.58 seconds to win the 1981 NCAA Outdoor title, then a collegiate record and the fastest in the world that year.
He also ran 44.69 seconds in 1982 and 44.62 seconds in 1983, the three fastest “in-season collegiate performances in history,” the Association’s website said.
Guthrie, who attended Hampton High and St Elizabeth Technical High School, won five NCAA D1 titles — three in long jump and two in the heptathlon. She also still owns the Heptathlon national record of 6,527 points, set in 1995.
When Guthrie won her first NCAA heptathlon title in 1994, she created history by winning a second individual title and a year later she achieved her personal best, which is also the NCAA record today, in the event.
Guthrie’s long jump titles included a sweep of the indoor and outdoor versions as a freshman in 1991 and in four years never finished lower than third in the NCAA Championships — indoors or outdoors, while also scoring three times in the high jump.
Russell-Love, the former Campion College standout, also won five NCAA D1 titles — three outdoors in the 100m hurdles and two indoors in the 55m hurdles.
Her final outdoor title, as a senior in 1995, made her the first woman to win three D1 100m hurdle titles. Her first indoor title, as a freshman in 1992, made her the first male or female NCAA champion for the Hurricanes in track and field.
Russell won the 1994 NCAA D1 outdoor title by a margin of 0.40 seconds — the largest in the event’s history — and she was just the second woman to make four consecutive finals in the D1 100m hurdles.