Southern University’s Tanisha Alase is headed to Eugene with more than momentum. She’s carrying one of the most historic seasons in recent Southern track and field memory.
This hasn’t been a quiet breakout. Alase has been one of the country’s fastest hurdlers all spring. She became the first women’s hurdler to advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championships since Alethea Antoine in 1994.
Alase also became the first Southern woman to qualify for both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships in the same season, a milestone that puts her in a class of her own in program history.
Tanisha Alase has dominated all season
Her numbers tell the story, too. At the LSU Alumni Gold, Alase clocked 12.71 in the 100-meter hurdles, which was the fastest time in the NCAA that season and the No. 2 time in the world. Then she turned around and delivered another signature race at the SWAC Outdoor Championships, winning in 12.64 seconds — a performance NCAA coverage described as the nation’s fastest among HBCU sprinters and a SWAC championship record.
View this post on Instagram
What has made Alase such a compelling story is not just the speed, but the way she has handled the moment. After that NCAA East Regional performance, she told RunBlogRun: “Coming into this race, I really tried to have the mindset of it’s just another regular meet,” and added, “Just because it might seem like a bigger stage, that doesn’t necessarily need to change anything. So just staying consistent was the plan coming into here.”
She’s had to overcome adversity
That mindset fits the way she talks about the bigger picture, too.
“It doesn’t really matter where you’re at. If you have a goal, there’s no goal you can’t reach as long as you believe in yourself.” She also said, “The plan is to just keep competing and just see where it takes me.”
After she was involved in a head-on vehicle collision that cost her the 2025 season, Alase overcame adversity to deliver a nation-leading performance, which only adds to the weight of what she’s done this year.
So when Alase lines up in Eugene, she won’t just be another competitor in the field. She’ll be one of the meet’s most compelling stories.
