NEW ORLEANS --- New Mexico Highlands' Salcia Slack was one of eight new members of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association NCAA Division II Athlete Hall of Fame on Wednesday and became the first Cowgirl to enter the hall of fame.
Slack was a four-time national champion for NMHU - and is arguably not only the greatest athlete to don the purple for the Cowgirls, but in Division-II history.
"Salcia may be the best track and field athlete in the history of D-II," NMHU track and field coach Bob DeVries said. "She could throw the shot 45-feet, race the 100 hurdles under 13.5 and run the 800-meters in 2:13, I've never seen an athlete with her combination of skills, strength and speed. It's no surprise she got into the Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility."
Slack left her mark in a big way at the 2015 NCAA DII Outdoor Championships. Over the span of three days in Allendale, Michigan, Slack won the heptathlon for the second year in a row, took runner-up honors in both the 100- and 400-meter hurdles, finished sixth in the open long jump and helped New Mexico Highlands take fourth in the 4×400 relay.
Count it up: 30.25 points.
If Slack competed alone, she would have finished seventh in the team standings. That wasn't the case, though: Slack led the Cowgirls to their first top-4 finish at the Outdoor Championships in program history (NMHU also took third indoors thanks to another sterling effort by Slack).
In addition to 16 total All-America honors, multitudes of conference titles and multiple National and Regional Athlete of the Year laurels from the USTFCCCA, Slack's name dots the NCAA DII record book: Slack stands alone at the top of the heptathlon all-time chart as the only athlete to amass more than 6,000 points (6,141, to be exact) and also holds the third-best total (5833); she is the No. 3 performer in the pentathlon at 4,181 points – barely missing the NCAA DII record of 4193 points – and owns the No. 4 (4,193), No. 5 (4,172) and No. 6 (4,149) all-time performances.
