For Arizona track and field’s Erin Tack and Sydnie Vanek, the journey to competing at NCAA Championships Thursday in Eugene, Oregon came with a type of sacrifice that most college athletes will never encounter.
Tack and Vanek both competed in other sports at Arizona before going all in on their current disciplines. Tack, a javelin thrower, was part of the women’s basketball team for two seasons, while Vanek, a long jumper, played on the women’s volleyball team from 2023 through this past fall.
To achieve
the highest success in track and field, Tack and Vanek decided to move on from the sports that helped forged their identity as athletes. Though the transition from competing in two sports to specializing in track and field wasn’t easy, their decisions paid off when they qualified for NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which take place this week at Oregon’s famed Hayward Field.
Fittingly, Tack and Vanek will be vying for individual national titles at the same time Thursday evening. Tack competes at 6:15 in the final round of the javelin. Vanek takes the stage for the long jump final at 6:40.
The two are part of a group of 19 Arizona athletes competing at nationals, one of the largest contingents in UA track and field history.
“We’re all going there to compete, and compete for a title as well,” Tack said. “Just knowing that we all belong here and have put in the preparation, and not just having the happy to be here mindset, but we all deserve to be here and we all can compete.”
Fulfilling a childhood dream
Playing multiple sports at once is what Tack knew growing up in Kelso, Washington. Though basketball was her favorite, Tack also played volleyball and soccer. During her freshman year of high school, Tack’s volleyball coach – who doubled as a javelin coach – suggested she give the track and field event a try.
To Tack’s initial surprise, throwing a spear-like object far into the air came easy to her.
“It kind of clicked with me, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I’m naturally good at this. I can do something with this,” Tack said. “But kind of the same thing of I always thought I was going to do basketball, and it was just going to be a side offseason thing for me.”
In junior year at Kelso High School, Tack tore her ACL, causing her to give up basketball the next two seasons. She put her efforts fully into javelin and became the top thrower in the state. Tack committed to Arizona with the expectation of competing solely on the track and field team.
Tack’s first year in Tucson went according to plan. She immediately made her mark on the track and field team, breaking the UA freshman record while appearing in six meets.
Then came the fall semester of Tack’s sophomore season. As November 2023 rolled around, the Arizona women’s basketball team faced a rash of injuries that forced them to use just five players in an exhibition game against Point Loma.
In need of another body in practice, some players asked Tack if she would participate with the team for a few weeks.
The 6-foot-1 Tack hadn’t played basketball since her junior year of high school, but she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to play the sport she had grown up loving. Playing college basketball had never crossed her mind until she suited up in practice for Adia Barnes’ team.
“This had always been my dream since I was little, because I’ve been playing basketball since I was in kindergarten,” Tack said.
For all of Tack’s eagerness to get back on the hardwood, her body had different ideas. Tack tore her ACL a week after joining the team, sidelining her not only from playing basketball but also for the upcoming track and field season.
After sitting out as a sophomore, Tack returned her junior year resolute to compete in both basketball and track.
“I was just super excited to play at this level,” Tack said.
Tack made 13 appearances with the 2024-25 women’s basketball team, highlighted by a 10 point outing against Chicago State. Tack credits her time with the team for improving her coordination as an athlete.
“Running down the runway and being able to hold something while you’re doing it, and then with basketball, we did a lot of like plyos and conditioning,” Tack said. “So the explosiveness definitely helped, which translates to the javelin just having that fast twitch to throw far.”
The experience also reconnected Tack with a familiar face who she knew from back home in Kelso: Tommy Lloyd.
Tack’s mother was a teacher at Kelso High School at the time Lloyd attended the school. Tack is good friends with Lloyd’s nephew, who she played with at the Spokane Hoopfest.
“When I joined (women’s basketball) at Arizona, coach Lloyd was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so crazy. Kelso representing.’ Small world that we’re both there, but it was super cool to have somebody just back at home that was in the basketball and athletic realm there at Arizona,” Tack said.
Tack moved on from the women’s basketball team after Arizona parted ways with Barnes following the 2024-25 season and brought in Becky Burke. With Burke developing a new roster, it made sense for Tack to focus her energy strictly on javelin, she said.
“It was just easy to want to focus on javelin, because I know I have a high ceiling for that,” Tack said.
A leap of faith
Whereas Tack committed to Arizona with the intention of competing in track and field, the same wasn’t the case for Vanek, a highly decorated high school volleyball player out of Clovis, California.
After Vanek committed to Arizona, a family friend who had served as a manager for the track and field program in the 90s told then-UA head coach Fred Harvey about an incoming freshman who’d just won the California state long jump championship. One conversation led to another, and by the time Vanek graduated from Clovis High School, she was intent on being a two-sport athlete at Arizona.
Vanek’s fall semester of freshman year was entirely focused on volleyball, while the spring amounted to maintaining her role on the volleyball team and maximizing her hours training for long jump.
“It was pretty time consuming doing both of them,” Vanek said. “I think the biggest part which did make it work was just communicating with your coaches about how your body’s feeling. You’re doing two different sports that use completely different muscles.”
Volleyball requires a lot of vertical jumping and not much running, whereas long jump demands a lot of speed work and horizontal jumping.
“In volleyball, we don’t run really that much, just short distances, but for track it’s a lot more distances,” Vanek said. “People think sometimes just because I’m a long jumper I still don’t have to sprint and run, which is completely not true. I do have to.”
As hard as Vanek worked at managing both sports, she knew at some point she would have to choose one over the other. After finishing the volleyball season last fall, Vanek decided she wanted to give track and field her full attention.
Volleyball had taken up the majority of her energy since childhood, and with a concerted plan to train at long jump, she felt she’d have a better chance of achieving elite success as an athlete.
“I don’t think you can really have the best of both worlds,” Vanek said. “You could be an okay track and field athlete and an okay volleyball athlete and do both, but I think for me it came down to really wanting to be an excellent track and field athlete and really see how far I can go.”
Letting go of volleyball has been hard at times, Vanek said, particularly no longer getting to spend four hours a day, six or seven days a week with her teammates and coaches. While track and field invites camaraderie between individual athletes, the team sport element of volleyball was tough to give up.
“Arizona volleyball for my time at Arizona was kind of my family,” Vanek said. “Rita (Stubbs) and Ryan (Windisch) and the staff were my people. So I think that was the biggest thing I didn’t want to lose when I came over to the track and field world.”
While Vanek misses the relationships from volleyball team, she’s enjoyed getting to know her track and field teammates better through activities put on by first-year head coach Andrew Dubs. The team tries to do fun things ahead of each meet, with the group in Eugene enjoying an escape rom this week before the start of NCAA Championships.
“I think he’s done an excellent job kind of shifting around this program and just the people he brings in,” Vanek said.
Finishing strong
Whether or not Tack or Vanek place on the podium Thursday, the spring outdoor season has been a major stepping stone for both athletes.
For Tack, the breakthrough came last month when she advanced out of NCAA Regionals after narrowly not qualifying for nationals a year ago. Tack had to watch as other competitors tried to knock her out of the final qualifying spot. She called the experience the most stressful hour of her life.
“Once I saw that final throw that I was in, oh my gosh, it was so much relief and happiness because I’ve been trying to make nationals for obviously my whole college career,” Tack said.
Tack plans to exercise her final year of eligibility and compete with Arizona again next season as she gears up for a possible run at the 2028 LA Olympics.
Vanek’s postseason run got underway last month at the Big 12 Championships, where she won the long jump title in front of a home crowd at UA’s Drachman Stadium.
Vanek then cruised through regionals, earning a personal record to finish third. Like Tack, Vanek is competing at NCAA Championships for the first time.
“I probably was way more nervous for West Regionals than I am here going into Eugene, because it’s like I kind of just wanted to make it to Eugene and be here,” Vanek said. “Obviously I want to do well, but at that time that that was my mindset going into it.”
Vanek, too, has aspirations of representing Team USA at LA 2028. She’ll get a taste of international meets this summer competing in Europe.
For both Tack and Vanek, the support they’ve received from one another has gone a long way as they fully commit to careers in track and field.
“I just think Erin’s a great girl, and we’re just able to relate to a specific category that not a lot of people are able to relate to,” Vanek said. “So, I think that’s just something that we bonded over.”
Added Tack, “It’s just super cool that someone else is kind of doing the same thing as you, and we get to support each other through that. I would go to volleyball games, she would go to basketball games. Arizona has a really cool community like that.”
