Track and Field
- Title:
- Assistant Coach (Sprints/Hurdles)
- Email:
- a.usery@siu.edu
- Phone:
- 618-453-5452
- Alma Mater:
- Florida, 2012
By the Numbers
• 11 MVC Champions
• 28 MVC All-Conference
• 31 SIU All-Time Top 10 marks
• 12 NCAA Final and Preliminary round qualifiers
• 1 NACAC Under-23 participant and medalist
• 1 Jr. Pan American Games participant
Alishea Usery enters her third year at SIU. She primarily assists Coach Raske with the Saluki sprinters.
Last year was one of the most successful seasons for the Saluki sprinters in a number of years. For the first time since 1989, the Saluki women swept the outdoor MVC relays. Along the way the 4 x 100m quartet ran 44.33 to set new SIU and MVC records and they advanced on to the West NCAA Championship preliminary for the first time in history. Usery also helped guide transfer sophomore Brianna Branch who claimed the runner-up and third place positions in the MVC 100m and 200m respectively. In doing so she advanced to the West NCAA Preliminary in the 200m and 4 x100m relay. Freshman Shafiqua Maloney will also be a force to contend with in the future as she claimed the runner-up award at the outdoor MVC with a personal best time of 54.25 in the 400m. She also ran on the aforementioned 4 x 100 relay and participated in the Junior Pan-American Championship this past summer. Sophomore Ryan Mayberry had big improvements this past year. Most notably placing fifth at the indoor MVC with a personal best time of 21.83.
During the 2015-16 season, Usery’s athletes had plenty of success. She helped guide the sprinters to two MVC Championships, 11 All-Conference accolades, 13 Top-10 all-time marks and two school records. Tyrone Echols and Mystique Thompson both set new school records in the 60-meter dash at the 2016 MVC Indoor Championships.
While an assistant with the Gators, the men's outdoor track and field program won the 2013 NCAA Championship and in 2015, her final season at Florida, the men's indoor track and field team won its third Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship in the past six seasons.
A native of St. Louis, Mo., Usery claimed 12 individual state championships during her four years at McCluer South-Berkeley High School, and posted 15 first-place finishes out of 16 attempts at the state meets. She twice helped the Bulldogs claim the Missouri Class 3A state title, and still holds the state record in both the 200m (23.78) and the 400m (53.55). Usery was the recipient of the 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Athlete of the Year and became the first Missouri runner to be named the Gatorade Missouri Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year three times, a feat no other Missouri runner has accomplished since Gatorade began handing out the award in 1986.
After a decorated high school career, Usery earned a full scholarship to the University of Florida. During a stellar freshman campaign, Usery was selected to the 2009 SEC All-Freshmen First-Team following both the indoor and outdoor seasons and qualified for both the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships. She went on to win the 400-meter dash at the 2009 U.S. Junior Outdoor Track & Field Championships, advancing to the Pan Am Games in Trindad and Tobago, where she won gold as part of the 4x400 relay team.
Usery is a 2012 UF graduate with a bachelor's degree in recreation, parks and tourism and was a four-time All-American. She still ranks high in the UF record books in the indoor 60-meters (7.29).
In addition to Alishea's twin sister, Ashley, who also earned a track and field scholarship to the University of Florida, Usery has an older brother, Mike Rodgers, who runs professionally for Nike and ran a leg of the 4x100 for the United States at the 2016 Olympics.
