Donnie Young (2000) - Southern Miss M-Club Hall of Fame

Donnie Young

Induction:
2000

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to really one of the first to something at your college or university? A trendsetter that established standards that athletes that followed would shake their heads and wonder how they did that, as often as they did and when they did it.
That’s the type of person that Donnie Young was as a sprinter for the Golden Eagle track team from 1980 to 1984. When Southern Miss resurrected its track program in 1978 after 20-years of hibernation, Coach Marshall Bell was looking for that one athlete that could give his fledgling program immediate nation attention and credibility. And in an incredible twist of irony, he found that person in of all places Oxford, Mississippi.
In just a short time Donnie Young established himself as one of the top sprinters in the South and ultimately in the nation.
Incredibly enough his name still dots the Southern Miss record book nearly 20-years after he finished his career. His wind aided time of 9.91 and 10.10 unaided in the 100-meters set in the spring of 1984 are still school records, as is his 20.64 time in the 200-meters. As a part of the school’s 4x100 meter relay team their time of 40.26 still is the school’s standard as is his time of 41.71 in the 440-yard relay.
His spectacular spring of 1984 has never been duplicated at Southern Miss. At the 1984 Metro Conference Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, he put on an incredible show. He won the 100-meters with a time of 10.43 seconds, won the 200-meters with a time of 20.91 and was a member of the winning 4x100-meter relay team with a time of 42.9. His performance in that meet earned him the honor of being the co-outstanding athlete at the Metro Conference Championships and leaving everyone wondering, how could anyone have been any better.
His performances during that 1984 season earned him an honor that had never come to a Southern Miss track athlete before, an invitation to the NCAA championships to compete in both the 100 and 200-meter races.
The 4x100-meter relay team that he ran on just missed qualifying for the NCAAs that year.
He also earned a berth in the Olympic Trials in the summer of 1984; the only Golden Eagle athlete ever accorded that honor.
What was the secret to the success of Donnie Young? He obviously had an abundance of God given ability that let him run as fast as he could. But Donnie was able to take those God given abilities and perfect them to a point that enabled him to compete so successfully.
Ask his former teammates and his coaches and they will tell you that Donnie Young was a focused athlete, who knew what he wanted to accomplish, how he wanted to accomplish it and how to achieve it. He was like a lot of our inductees in that regard, only Donnie had the ability to get there a little quicker.