Denim Goddard quickly realized college athletics are extremely different from high school.
From the increased number and severity of workouts to the time management struggles, she had to learn how to be responsible as she was living on her own for the first time as a freshman at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.
“Athletically, it was a big change,” Goddard said. “I taught myself to hold myself with a lot of accountability.”
Goddard, Oglethorpe County’s former track and basketball star, improved in the triple and long jumps this spring after a slow start to her career during the indoor season last winter.
At the Atlantic Sun championships in May, she was seventh in the triple jump (37 feet, 2¼ inches) and 12th in the long jump (17-6¼). Both distances were improvements from the indoor championships, where she posted a 35-3¾ in the triple jump and 17-0 in the long jump.
She admitted that she’s more committed than she was at OCHS, despite the fact that she won state titles in both events her final two seasons with the Patriots.
Former track and field coach Tim Stoudenmire, who has since retired, remembers her as a playful girl who had to be forced to work hard. Although, that didn’t diminish her talent.
“Even as a ninth-grader, you knew that she was incredibly gifted,” he said. “She could fly.”
Goddard realized around her junior year that she wanted to sign with a Division I program, but knew she needed to make adjustments. She had to start putting in the work to pursue her dreams.
“No matter how good you are, you still have to work every single day and give it 100%,” Goddard said. “I move forward with that same mentality that no matter how you’re looking right now, you never know what could happen.”
She received a scholarship from APSU.
Both Goddard and Stoudenmire recognize the growth Goddard has experienced over the past year. They keep in touch and Stoudenmire is proud of the athlete and person she is becoming.
“She grew from a skinny, little beanpole that just found everything to be funny into a very hard-working college athlete,” Stoudenmire said.
Goddard has a goal of competing in the Olympics and Stoudenmire thinks she could compete professionally after college.
“If me and you had bet in the ninth grade that she was going to jump Division I as a freshman in college, I would have lost that bet,” he said. “The time that she grew from freshman year in high school to freshman year in college was certainly exponential.”
Goddard, a criminal justice major, aspires to become a crime scene investigator in the future, but only after her track career is over.
“I have to put in the work, have trust and believe in God,” she said.