BY JENNIFER JAVIER
Staff reporter
06/28/2001

After blazing through the high school track ranks, Danielle Bailey is ready for her next challenge: becoming successful at the collegiate level.

In four years at Christiana High, Bailey emerged as one of the state's best sprinters. She was a double winner at the 2001 state meet, taking the 400 meters and her third consecutive 100 crown. At the Meet of Champions, she swept the 100, 200 and 400.

She caps off her high school career as The News Journal's High School Track and Field Girls Athlete of the Year, an honor she also received last year.

But while Bailey enjoyed her high school career, she said she's looking forward to being around college athletes who live and breathe track. She will attend Seton Hall.

"In high school, it's a fun thing to do, but I'm kind of ready to be around people who are serious about track," she said. "I want to do a weight program and everything. I really want to bring my times down, and there are certain things you are limited to doing in high school."

Bailey received letters from 65 colleges, and Maryland, Tennessee, Kent State and Florida also recruited her. But she chose Seton Hall because of coach John Moon, a former assistant Olympic coach. Her ultimate goal is to reach the Olympics, and she believes he can help her.

"[Moon] has a good name," she said. "I feel like I can trust him with my training. I know he wants to be an Olympic coach again, and to do that, you have to produce athletes. So I feel like we have a common goal."

Christiana coach Dave Jones has no doubt Bailey has the tools to be successful.

"She enjoys running track, the workouts and coming to practice," he said. "When you get that kind of motivation, there's not much you need to do to keep her on track. With her overall enthusiasm and motivation within herself, it's hard to discourage her."

Early in her career, Bailey tackled whatever coaches threw at her. She was asked to run the 800 and cross country as a freshman. She didn't back down. She ran relays with upperclassmen as a freshman and sophomore and was able to challenge them.

She has run in national meets such as the adidas Outdoor Track and Field Championships, held every year in Raleigh, N.C., and uses those meets to gauge what she needs to do to be successful nationally. She placed fourth in the 200 in this year's meet.

"Most of the girls who were freshmen and sophomores were really fast, and I see people I'll be running against in conference next year," Bailey said. "I know I'm not going to be winning all the time. It'll be a wake-up call as a freshman."

Though she's been used to having success throughout high school, Jones doesn't think there will be much of a problem if Bailey doesn't win at first in college.

"As long as she enjoys what she's doing, she'll be fine," he said. "She understands the trials and tribulations of competition. She knows that day in and day out, she'll run against tough competition."

Bailey said she is looking forward to the challenge..

"Getting this far is something I never thought I would do," she said. "I didn't start track until I was a freshman, just because I wanted to try something new, and two years later I'm in the newspaper all the time. It's great, and I just had a lot of fun doing it."

Reach Jennifer Javier at 324-2805 or jjavier@delawareonline.com.