Maddie Frey’s Switch to Fast Twitch
5/11/2022
How a midwestern soccer player became a premier Ivy League sprinter
by: Kim Goss
One of the most stressful decisions a promising high school athlete has to make is what college to attend. Do you go for the one with the most prestigious athletic program or the one that has an academic curriculum that will jumpstart your professional career? For track speedster and future medical doctor Madelyn “Maddie” Frey, there was a college where she could have both: Brown University.
The temptations not to attend Brown were numerous. She would be passing on academic and athletic scholarships, would not be attending college with her high school friends, and would be far from home. But as Maddie’s mother Angela explains, Brown was the obvious choice.
“Maddie is academically driven and wanted somewhere where she could be challenged academically but could compete in track at a high level. But she didn’t want to go to a college where track was the sole purpose – where you are assigned to live with the track people, eat at an athletes-only area with the track people, and only have opportunities to socialize with the track people. Being part of an exclusive club is not what Maddie wanted.” How did Brown stack up on the diversity scale?
Despite its challenging academic standards, 46 states and 47 countries currently represent Brown’s student population. As Dorothy in Oz would say, “Maddie was not in Wisconsin anymore!”
Muscles Maddie
Sports and physical fitness are a family tradition with the Freys. Her mother ran the Boston Marathon, her father Zack qualified for the Age-Group Nationals in the triathlon, and her brother Kevin (who really, really hates running) plays hockey. But it took many years for Maddie to find her passion.
As many parents do, Maddie’s parents tried to put her in dance classes. Ah, bad idea. Swimming was next, but she sank like a rock. She fared better in gymnastics, and Maddie’s strength so impressed the coaches they called her “Muscles Maddie.” But the sport Maddie eventually called her own was soccer.
Whereas her gymnastic coaches were impressed with her flex, Maddie’s soccer coaches quickly discovered that she was fast – wicked fast! Angela says Maddie’s soccer coaches had a drill where the girls would line up near the goal line and raced to midfield. “Maddie won every race, so make it fair, the coaches would have Maddie start the race on her belly. She still won.” So, they took it up a notch, starting Maddie on her belly and giving the other girls a head start.
When Maddie enrolled in Waukesha West High School, her speed did not go unnoticed by the track coaches. The problem was that in Wisconsin, soccer and track are Spring sports. However, Maddie’s coaches were supportive and made compromises, enabling her to do both. That is, until the fall of her sophomore year when she tore her ACL in soccer. Maddie was devastated, and the road to recovery was long and hard, such that she decided to quit soccer and focus on track.
For the next three years, Maddie’s focus was on the sprinting events. However, at the urging of the head track coach, Maddie ran cross-country and made the varsity team. Angela said that distance running wasn’t her strong suit, but “she’s always been able to step up when she had to.” One example was when Maddie was called upon to run on the 4x800m team in her senior year, which won the state championships. “This was just the second time she ran it but she finished in something like 2:19, which was remarkable. The head coach told me that Maddie’s college coaches would be crazy if they didn’t have her run the 800.”
Maddie by the Numbers
Although comic book geeks would say that Maddie channels the Speed Force, real science suggests that Maddie possesses a high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers. As opposed to slow-twitch muscles that are built for endurance, fast-twitch fibers are built for speed and power.
How much power?
Consider that Maddie does “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” cleans with 165 pounds, rock-bottom squats with 100 pounds more, and reps out chin-ups with 40 pounds hanging off her waist. And as impressive as the New England Patriots’ #1 draft pick was who posted a 28-inch vertical on his Pro Day, consider that this Brown biological spring leaps 29.4 and has mathematical conversion formulas suggesting that Maddie could smoke this lineman in the 40-yard-dash. Yes, the Patriot’s future blocking machine weighs as much as a large household appliance, but just sayin'.
How much speed?
Based on the number of talented short-distance sprinters Brown had and Maddie’s success in the 800m, Maddie’s main events in her freshman year were the 400m and the 200m. She worked hard and became good enough to compete in the Ivy League Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Maddie’s efforts in the Outdoor League Championships were especially impressive as she came through with a personal best of 56.71 in 400m.
The following year Maddie’s quickness could not be denied, and her coach had the confidence to add the 60m to her indoor competition menu. She scored a PR in that event with 7.87, a PR of 40.66 in the 300m, and a PR of 56.09 in the 400m. And for the bonus round, she was part of the 4x400m team that broke the school record of 3:40.80 at the BU Valentine Invitation. Then came COVID.
The superbug bit hard, canceling two seasons that Maddie would never get back and forcing her to move back home. In a word, Angela describes her daughter’s homecoming as...well, “Miserable!” Adds Head Sprint Coach Gabriel Mvumvure. “Maddie was gifted with the potential to be an All-American, and it’s unfortunate that the pandemic stole so much time from her college athletic career.”
Let’s move on.
When track resumed, Maddie didn’t miss a quick step. Highlights in her comeback season included a personal best of 11.92 in the 100m, the seventh fastest time in school history, and a PR of 25.11in the 200m. These were wind-aided, but a victory is a victory! Maddie also added valuable team points as part of Brown’s 4x100 relay team.
With the sacrifices forced upon college athletes nationwide, the 2022 Outdoor season was to be Maddie’s final one at Brown. She did not disappoint. Along with several prestigious victories, she shattered many PRs, including winded-added bests of 11.76 in the 100 and 23.99 in the 200. These marks are unofficially the second-best times in school history. But Maddie wanted more, much more.
On the first day of the Ivy League Championships, the flagship event for Brown track and field athletes, Maddie once again channeled the Speed Force with personal “wind-legal” records in the 100m and 200m. Her 100m time was 11.97, shattering her previous best of 12.34; and her 200m time was 23.88, crushing into a bloody pulp her old mark of 24.38. Oh, the 200m time was an official school record, exceeding the standard set by Teri Smith in 1990 – you read that right, 32 years ago!
On the second day, Maddie warmed up by running on the 4x100 team that made the finals. She then turned on the afterburners in the 100m for another personal record with 11.95 for the bronze, behind teammate Sydney Scott who made a PR of 11.91 for the silver. This result officially landed Maddie in 4th place on the all-time ranking list at Brown. In the 200m finals, Maddie ran 24.05 (her second best-ever time!) for fourth. To cool down, Maddie competed in the last race of the day, running the second leg of the 4x440m.
Although track and field competitions consist primarily of individual events, Maddie is quick to acknowledge her support team.
First, of course, are Maddie’s teammates who inspire her to train hard and compete even harder. Next is athletic trainer Beth Conroy, whose sports medicine expertise and high-tech healing gizmos helped Maddie deal with the aches and pains of elite training. And of course, there is the support and coaching skills of Coach Mvumvure and Coach J.J. Riese, Mvumvure’s predecessor, who recruited Maddie. “Maddie has grown from being a reserved 400m freshman to a well-driven and tenacious all-around short sprinter – I’m going to miss her leadership, passion, and determination,” says Mvumvure. This respect goes both ways.
“Gabu is someone who tells it like it is – he always tells you exactly what you did wrong and will not sugarcoat it,” says Maddie. “I’ve had to learn to grow a thick skin, but at the same time, when Gabu says you did something right you know he means it!” That’s the physical, but there’s also the mental side of Mvumvure’s approach to coaching.
“Gabu is an amazing coach who believes in me more than I believe in myself,” says Maddie. “He coaches all his athletes like they can achieve anything...and I really love that confidence. He is also a great person who can crack jokes with you when he just killed you in a workout. I couldn’t have asked for a better coach for my time at Brown than Gabu.”
Paging Dr. Frey
Although Maddie’s college running days are coming to the finish line, her education is taking a few more laps. After accepting her undergrad degree this year in public health, Maddie will attend grad school at Brown, followed by med school. Yes, Brown has a special long-term “guaranteed to be a medical doctor” program, but that is not the path she chose.
“Maddie always had medical school in the back of her mind, but kept quiet about it,” says Angela. “She didn’t say, ‘I want to be a medical doctor and nothing else.’” So, to find the true color of her parachute (as high school guidance counselors would say), Maddie took art and AP Spanish classes, and traveled to Italy and Greece. “In college, Maddie wanted to explore other options...to see what’s out there...and Brown’s open curriculum option allowed her to explore her other interests that included science, sociology, and economics.”
One last bit of insight Angela wants to share is that some students achieve success because they are naturally smart, perhaps even blessed with photographic memories that enable them to score high without really trying. “That’s not Maddie! Yes, some subjects come easy to her, but for the most part, Maddie gets the grades she does and has achieved the success she has in so many other areas because she works hard, incredibly hard.”
Maddie has taken the first steps through the Brown University education system to enter the challenging and noble field of medicine. Because she has a few more races to run to close out her college track and field career, let’s leave the last words to Coach Mvumvure: “I am a firm believer that Maddie Frey will continue finding success on and off the track, and I can’t stop bragging about how she has made me an even better coach!”
