Chiamaka Odenigbo’s Tracks (and Fields) Less Traveled
11/8/2022
by: Kim Goss
A versatile Ivy League athlete’s long journey to athletic excellence
One quality that sets Brown University athletics apart is its commitment to recruiting athletes from diverse backgrounds, particularly those from other countries. Case in point: Chiamaka Odenigbo.
A junior, Chiamaka (pronounced Chi-yah-MAH-kah) is looking forward to another impressive track season with the Bears. She excels in the multis but also competes in individual events to score valuable team points. Ken Hunt is currently the Director of Track and Field and Cross Country at Brown. When he considered Chiamaka for Brown, rather than concentrating on her scores, he focused on videos that shouted “potential!” Coach Hunt wasn’t wrong. Let’s look at some numbers.
Chiamaka competed in her first pentathlon in 2021. She earned 3230 points and finished the season with 3611 points! For individual events, here are her personal bests:
Jumped Higher: 1.5m to 1.7m, High Jump
Jumped Longer: 5.42m to 5.66m, Long Jump
Threw Farther: 8.86m to 10.15m, Shot Put
Sprinted Faster: 9.01s to 8.72s, 60m Hurdles
Ran Better: 2.41s to 2.37s, 800m
Besides contributing valuable team points, Coach Hunt says he recognized early on Chiamaka’s leadership qualities and took advantage, making her a team captain this year. “Chiamaka is a natural-born leader, so being named a team captain was inevitable.”
Chiamaka was born in Uganda, a landlocked country in East Africa that borders Kenya. Uganda is considered “The Pearl of Africa” because of its natural beauty and rich agriculture. Chiamaka is seldom asked about her birthplace, but once was caught off guard when someone asked if they had gas and electricity!
Because her mother Uchenna works for the United Nations, the Odenigbo family was frequently relocated to new posts. Chiamaka found herself in New York briefly when she was six, then it was off to a post in Israel and other areas. Three years later, her mother was posted back in New York long term. Currently, Uchenna is the Chief of Mission Support for the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance in Sudan (UNITAMS).
Getting on Track
Chiamaka attended New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, New York. This large (3,000+ student enrollment!) public school in the southeastern part of New York paralleled Chiamaka’s international background. The student population has represented over 60 countries and is praised for its athletic excellence – 96 percent of its graduates go on to college, compared to the national average of 66.2 percent.
Before high school, Chiamaka had not participated in formal athletics. She became interested in track and field from watching the success of her sister Kenechukwu, who competed in track at Williams College from 2015-2019. During her journey to earn a degree in biology and take the steps to become an OB-GYN doctor, Kenechukwu made the All-New England Team three times. She was also on the team that won the 2019 Indoor NCAA Division III Championships.
Chiamaka was fascinated by the stories her sister told her about the circus environment of track and field events. “My sister told me these crazy stories about how the triple jump and high jump were on opposite ends of the track. She would high jump, run across the track to triple jump, then run back to high jump. Those stores are definitely what piqued my interest in the sport.”
Chiamaka’s high school coach Andy Capellan took advantage of Chiamaka’s athletic gifts by having her compete in several events. Her personal bests were 14.66s in the 100m hurdles, 1.65m in the high jump, and 11.9m in the triple jump. Her favorite event was the hurdles, as she liked the feeling of accelerating across the ground.
In an interview by Nancy Haggerty of the Rockland/Westchester Journal News, Coach Capellan had this to say about Chiamaka’s high school experience. “Chia proved to be an extremely diligent hard worker on the track and in the classroom. She is ranked in the top 10 in a graduating class of over 800...I got the impression that she just did track for just an activity to fill her resume. As the years passed, her work ethic kicked in and she improved, gradually learning, hey, she could evolve into a potential D1-scholarship athlete.”
Although Chiamaka qualified for the New Balance Indoor Nationals in her senior year, the event was canceled because of COVID. Oh, along the way, Chiamaka was named the 2020 Westchester/Putnam County Girls Track Athlete of the Year. Academically, her hard work in the classroom paid off as she received the 2020 Academic Excellence Award at the annual Black History Month Celebration.
Chiamaka didn’t start taking her college search process seriously until her senior year, but when she was ready, Brown was at the top of her list. On her campus visit, Coach Hunt asked Lily Dumas, now a senior who also competes in the multis, to show her around. Chiamaka joked that the primary reason Coach Hunt selected Lily was because they were both over six feet tall!
Lily says that she had little to do with Chiamaka choosing Brown as she was sold on the historic Ivy League campus from the start – she already knew quite a bit about Brown because she had two friends who attended. And as diverse as her high school was, Brown was even more so with 95 percent of its student body being out of state and 13 percent being international citizens.
Beyond the Bug
Freshman year at any college is a challenge, but it became even more so with COVID as several sports seasons were canceled and Brown’s indoor track and field facility, the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center, had to be converted to a COVID testing center. Testing, masks, Zoom classes, and those awkward fist-bump handshakes didn’t help the cause. It was a tough time for Chiamaka as she loves to compete, but her positive outlook enabled her, and helped her teammates, get through it. “Chiamaka has a contagious personality and an infectious spirit that uplifts everyone she is around.”
Of course, there is the word “student” in a student-athlete, and for her major at Brown, Chiamaka eventually decided to focus on mechanical engineering. Part of her interest in this field came from the support of her father Francis; while living in Uganda, Francis switched careers (from a job with the UN) to becoming a civil engineer. The other reason was her love of planes, which she became very familiar with because her family flew so much when she was young.
“I just found planes to be...well, marvelous. There are so many complexities behind even a short flight from New York to Providence. I figured that the best way I could get closer to them was through engineering. You might say my parents encouraged me to pursue engineering but that I stuck with it because of planes.” She is especially interested in learning the limits of these flying machines, particularly what causes them to break down.
Coach Hunt has been with Chiamaka since her first day at Brown and can’t say enough about what a positive addition she has been to Brown’s track and field program. “If you combined a bundle of joy with a ton of happiness, you could call it Chiamaka. Although only a junior, Chiamaka Odenigbo’s impact so far is pivotal and she is destined for success in all her pursuits.”
