By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Long before she ever ran on a track, Julia Stepper knew she had a pair of fleet feet.
 
All of the kids in her fifth grade physical education class at Woodland Intermediate School knew it, too – and they weren't always eager to compete against her during fitness tests.
 
"I despised boys at that time," Stepper said with a hearty laugh of those still-memorable childhood days. "But I always got stuck racing against them because no girls wanted to race me. I felt alone. So my P.E. teacher put me up against some of the guys."
 
 

She beat many of them to the finish line.
 
Now into her senior year at Seattle Pacific, Stepper has no trouble finding speedy college women who are eager to race against her.
 
And, just like during her formative years in her Southwest Washington hometown of Woodland, she beats many of them to the finish line.
 
"It has been so fun to watch Julia's development," said SPU head coach Karl Lerum, "coming in as a highly touted high school athlete with really excellent marks."
 
The only thing Stepper wants now is the chance to race somebody to the finish line again –  just as soon as the pandemic-related health regulations allow her and the rest of the Falcons to do so.
 
"It's going to feel amazing," Stepper said, even though no one knows for sure yet when that might happen. "I was really upset when it all ended (last spring). I think I threw my spikes in the corner of my closet behind a box because I didn't want to look at them.
 
"I'm excited to dust them off and get them back on and feel what it's like to be powerful again, what speed really feels like."
 
REVVING UP ON RELAYS
Stepper certainly knows what powerful really feels like. What speed really feels like.
 
Before the coronavirus halted all athletic competition last March, she was coming off her best indoor season. She posted personal-bests in the 60-meter dash (an NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 7.67 seconds) and in the 200 (24.96), both at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship meet.
 
 

"Getting a provisional mark was something I'd never done before. And while I didn't PR in the 200 (she ran 24.55 during her senior year at Woodland High School), I did dip under 25, which is something we've always wanted me to do again," Stepper said.
 
Indoor ovals and straightaways aren't the only places where the 5-foot-4 Stepper has stood tall.
 
Her name is in not one, but two record books as part of Seattle Pacific's outdoor 4-by-100 relay.
 
As a freshman in 2018, she teamed up with Renick Meyer, Becca Houk, and Grace Bley to set a new school standard of 46.33 seconds at the Ken Shannon Invitational. A week later at the GNAC Championships, that same group, with Stepper again on the second leg, clocked 46.61 to break the conference meet record.
 
The following spring, Peace Igbonagwam, Jenna Bouyer, Bley, and Stepper – in that order -- broke both records again: 46.23 at the Aztec Invitational for the fastest time in SPU history, then 46.32 for the best time in GNAC meet history.
 
"Peace is a really good leadoff runner because she can run a nasty corner. She gets out and she's strong," Stepper said. "Jenna, she has that speed and she can hold that speed (on the second leg) getting the momentum going. Grace kills it, no matter what – she owns that 200 curve (on the third leg). Then it's just nice to feel that speed on the back end for me anchoring the relay."

 

Bley says that when Stepper takes the baton, it's in good hands.
 
"I know she'll get it there, and I can count on her," Bley said. "There's a lot of trust involved. I know where she's going to be, and I love watching her finish the race."
 
That foursome was looking to go even faster in 2020. When the season was canceled and they never even got the opportunity, it hit Stepper hard.
 
"I really struggled just moving on. It felt like the worst break-up in the world," she said. "It was something we didn't want to happen, but it happened, and it was out of our control."
 
However, the door is still open. Stepper, Igbonagwam and Bouyer were all going to be back in 2021 anyway. Then when the NCAA announced it would allow all 2020 spring athletes to retain that year of eligibility, Bley – the relay's only senior – decided to take advantage of it and come back for the '21 season, as well.
 
They might run in the same order; they've also talked about perhaps running in a different order
 
All that matters to Stepper is that they get to run.
 
"Training has been going really well for me, so I'm excited to see what this hard work is going to do for me and how it's going to pay off," she said.
 
WOWING 'EM AT WOODLAND
Even when she was outsprinting nearly everyone in those fifth-grade fitness tests, Julia Stepper didn't see herself as a future track athlete.
 
"You don't really know what talents you have until someone points them out," Stepper said. "My P.E. teacher said, 'Julia, do you realize you're the third-fastest in the whole school right now for girls' records?' I was like, 'Oh, cool! OK, I'm going to go read a book now.'

 

"I was not into it. It took a lot of convincing to get me to do track."
 
Once she got into it, those fleet feet were tough to beat. In her four years at Woodland, Stepper won 23 individual postseason championships: 11 at sub-district, 11 at district, and one very big one at state.
 
In fact, Stepper concluded each of her four high school seasons at the Washington Class 2A (medium / small school) state meet. She capped her career with a meet record-setting time of 11.89 seconds in the 100-meter dash finals as a senior in 2017. That same state weekend, she was second in the 200 with a school-record time of 24.55.
 
While sprinting is her specialty, she also qualified for the state long jump all four years, topped by a second-place finish as a junior in 2016.

Stepper even dabbled in distance running, turning out for cross country for two years. She was Woodland's No. 3 scorer at district as a junior and No. 2 scorer as a senior.
 
"It was such a blast, just to do something I've never done before," Stepper said. "I trained like I've never done before. It was awesome just to be able to have fun and run without all this pressure."
 
Her initial college short list didn't include SPU because … well, she'd never heard of SPU until getting a call from former Falcons assistant coach / sprints coach Audra Smith.
 
"When I got here, I spent maybe three or four hours. I was with my mom, and instantly, my heart was like saying, 'This is totally you,'" she recalled. "It lined up with my faith, it lined up what I want to do in the future with education. You can tell the coaches take things seriously, and this is a legitimate team that is going to push you.
 
"I come from a small (high) school, and it resembled that small school feeling a lot."
 
KEEP RUNNING  … OR NOT?
On the results sheet, Stepper had some noteworthy accomplishments during her 2018 freshman season. Indoors, she placed third in the 60-meter dash at GNAC. Outdoors, she ran the second leg on the school and GNAC meet record-setting 4 x 100 relays, and made the GNAC podium in the 100 (4^th) and 200 (7^th). She also won four regular-season races.

 

But adjusting to college-level training, especially in individual pursuits such as track or swimming, can be challenging for freshmen. When she went home for the summer, Stepper was asking herself if she wanted to keep competing. She was putting in more work than ever, and wasn't seeing the same kind of results she had in high school.
 
"I'm not going to lie: I thought about quitting track multiple times," Stepper said. "I always hit this wall of, 'Is this worth it?' because it's really hard…. It's different training when you're used to getting plenty of rest by running maybe six 200s for a hard workout (in high school). Here, that's an easy workout. It was just mentally getting over that."
 
Along with being out on her own for the first time and carrying a heavy class load, among other things, "It was just like a tornado."
 
Stepper got through that tornado and decided to give it another shot as a sophomore in 2019. The result was indoor PRs in the 60 and 200, her first collegiate sub 12-second mark in the 100 outdoors (11.96), and a big role in rewriting the Falcon and GNAC meet records in the 4 x 100 relay – again.
 
"She dealt with some injuries, she dealt with maybe losing a little bit of confidence through a tough (freshman) indoor year," SPU coach Lerum said. "But she just has made steady improvements as her career has gone on. She was poised to have a breakout season last spring (before the pandemic hit) and put herself on a different level."
 
TRACK OR TEACHING, SHE'S ALL IN
Stepper knows she can't do anything about the canceled 2020 season.
 
That's motivating her all the more for 2021. A winter indoor schedule is not likely, but she said that might be a silver lining.
 
"We have a lot of ground to make up because we did have such a long break," Stepper said. "That gives us time to work on fitness and find ways of adjusting."
 
So far, that ground is being made up in pods of just five. But Lerum likes what he's seeing from Stepper.
 
 

"Honestly, she didn't miss a beat from last March until we came back in September," he said. "She is training at such a high level right now. She wants to work hard, and she treats people well. I'm really looking forward to the day when she can train with some freshmen and be able to speak from experience about what it took for her to get to where she is."
 
Fellow senior Renick Meyer said that Stepper definitely brings a light-hearted side to the Falcons, "but she really knows when it's time to get down to business. She's very passionate about what does, and that rubs off on us. Her being so driven and passionate – that drives the rest of us, as well."
 
It's not only on the track where Stepper is all-in. A history major and an education major, she is doing student-teaching this quarter, with seventh grade history and eighth grade English / language arts – remotely, of course – at nearby McClure Middle School..
 
"I really like my middle schoolers. The cool thing is they've been super-engaged in current events, they're getting active, and they want to discuss difficult subjects – which is awesome," said Stepper, who is very outgoing and loves chatting with anybody. "We always do check-ins of how they're doing emotionally, how they feel about everything going on, where their anxiety is, and just being real with them."
 
But life isn't all work and no play – even during a pandemic. Stepper said she binge-watched the entire 15-season run of the television series "Grey's Anatomy" once and is now doing it a second time. She also has gotten hooked on "The Great British Bake Off," saying, "I'm making a list of things I want to try."
 
As for returning to normal? Stepper knows what she wants more than anything else.
 
"I'm ready for a time when we don't have to wear masks anymore. I'm missing people's smiles," she said. "I miss seeing people and recognizing who they are. And to actually be in person fully for classes would be nice."
 
Getting to race again is high on her list, too. She knows there are only so many races left in her career.
 
"I'm thankful I've made it through these last four years" Stepper said. "I'll be sad when it ends. But it'll be a happy ending for sure, no matter how it ends."
 
For Julia Stepper, perhaps the most appropriate ending will come on the track, alongside someone who's eager to compete against her …
 
… and then beating them to the finish line.