A goal-oriented approach to competition served Madison Renfro ’16 Houser well within the women’s track and field program at North Central College, as she aimed progressively higher each year and reached some of the loftiest achievements in the program’s history.
After contributing points to the Cardinals’ College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Indoor and Outdoor Championships in her first season on campus in 2013, Houser was encouraged by the North Central coaching staff to set her sights on bigger game.
“Every year, we had to write down at least two goals for ourselves,” Houser said. “(The coaches) told me I had a chance to compete at the national championships, so that became my next goal. Then the next goal was I wanted to get a top-five finish. My goals just kept getting bigger.”
As a sophomore, Houser qualified for the Division III Indoor Championships in the 60-meter hurdles, setting a North Central record (8.68 seconds) and placing fifth to earn All-America honors. Houser closed the outdoor season at the national finals as well, adding another All-America plaque with a seventh-place showing in the 100-meter hurdles.
The following year, Houser broke her own record in the 60-meter hurdles (8.59) and established new records in the indoor 55-meter dash (7.21) and 55-meter hurdles (8.07) before returning to the indoor national championships in the 60-meter hurdles and placing fourth. Houser finished second in the 100-meter hurdles at the outdoor national championships with a program-record time (13.65) and ran on the Cardinals’ fourth-place 4-by-100-meter relay team as North Central placed sixth in the field, its second-highest finish ever at a national meet.
Houser received some feedback from her coaches regarding her goals for her senior year that led to some light revision.
“I said I wanted to go to nationals in two (individual) events,” she said. “They stopped me and said they thought I could think bigger. So I wrote down that I wanted to win at nationals. Once we talked about it and I wrote it down I didn’t have a doubt in my mind that I could do it.”
A nagging injury impeded Houser’s progress during the 2016 indoor season, but she recovered well enough to break her own meet record in the 60-meter hurdles at the CCIW Indoor Championship.
“It was definitely a mental challenge, even though it was a physical injury,” she said. “I got really close with the athletic trainers and really loved them. They showed me what I needed to do and put me through different exercises every day. I was surrounded by a lot of people who lifted me up. It was a challenge, but I saw progress and that helped keep me going.”
At that year’s indoor national championship in Grinnell, Iowa, Houser clocked a time of 8.55 seconds in the event – the fifth-fastest ever in Division III at the time and still a North Central record – as she achieved her stated goal and won the program’s first individual national championship since 2009.
Houser won the 100- and 400-meter hurdle events at the CCIW Outdoor Championships that spring and was voted the conference’s Track Athlete of the Meet. She closed her career by placing second in the 100-meter hurdles and sixth in the 400-meter hurdles at the outdoor national championship, collecting her seventh and eighth All-America awards (the fifth-highest total in the program’s history).
The practice of goal-setting and her program’s philosophy of developing the whole person have proven lifelong benefits for Houser since graduation.
“We were coached not just to be great athletes, but great human beings,” she said. “I think about track a lot when I’m setting personal goals. It helped me think bigger and expect more of myself.”
