Let's start with the high school times, shall we? She went to Dickinson High School in the early 1990s and did some serious damage to the state record books.
In cross country, she won the state meet in both 1991 and 1992. Taking it a step further, she ran at Kinney Nationals (now called Footlocker- the national XC meet), taking 14th her junior year in 1991 and 10th her senior year in 1992.
When she graduated in 1993, she had these state records on the track (which also implies LOTS of state championships):
400: 56.94
800: 2:07.34
1600: 4:42.84
3200: 10:44.94
4x800: 9:21.14 (This is taken from the North Dakota high school track and field website, where a top ten all-time list has this as the top time. I will safely assume that since it is the fastest time in state history and one of the fastest girls in state history was a senior at that school during that year, she was on it)
The 400 still stands 7th in class A
The 800 still stands 2nd in class A (behind Laura Roesler)
The 1600 still stands as the fastest high school time ever by a North Dakota girl. The record is 22 years old now.
The 3200 still stands 5th in class A
The 4x8 still stands #1
The kind of athletes that have ran faster than these times in high school- Laura Roesler, Morgan Milbrath, Carly Emil, Beth Hoge- gives you an idea of how fast we are talking about here.
To finish off a stellar high school career, in 1993 Wells topped it off with a USA Junior National Championship in the 1500 in 4:21.77, the fastest winning time since 1984. So she could, at that time, claim to be the fastest high school girl's miler in the US. Her records in the state were (are) truly incredible, but she was in no way done.
After high school she went to the University of Alabama for her freshman and sophomore years of college from 1993-1995, and then to the University of Florida for the remainder of her collegiate career. This is a complete aside, but I would love to know how hard it was to acclimate to the heat and humidity down there after being in a drier and cooler part of the country before college.
(If you don't care too much about what her times and places were exactly, scroll down to the summary of her college career)
She started off the college running dream pretty spectacularly, winning the SEC Cross Country individual title as a freshman, running a 16:54 in the 5K and helping her Alabama team to 2nd place overall. She then placed 19th overall at the NCAA D1 National Meet, which I believe gathered an all-American status. She then continued to indoor track, where at the national meet she ran the mile in 4:44.28, placing her 7th. I can't find information on the 1994 Outdoor NCAA D1 National Meet, and I do find a 4:30.66 in the 1500 as her best time for her 1994 outdoor season, so it is possible that she didn't run at nationals- I don't know.
Her sophomore year was also pretty great. I do not see her listed in the results for nationals cross country this particular year, and I can't find results for the SEC meet. However, for indoor track she did compete at nationals, and in fact took 2nd place in the mile, running 4:40.07. I again can't find results for outdoor nationals, but she again ran a best time of 4:30 in the 1500 outdoors, so I don't really know why her times in outdoor were that much slower than indoor, unless I can get some information showing otherwise.
The next year things change. Now a junior in 1995-1996, Wells transfers to the University of Florida, but I don't know why. Either way she wins SEC cross country again, and runs at cross country nationals, this time placing 12th in 17:32. During indoor track she again ran the mile at nationals and again was an all-american, placing 7th with a time of 4:46. I can't get outdoor nationals results, but she has a 1500 best of 4:24.32 that season, which is a substantial improvement from the previous years.
Now a senior in 1996-1997, she has a truly breakthrough year. While she did win the SEC cross country meet in 17:04, she did not compete at nationals. However, track is where the big-time happened. At the national indoor meet in Indianapolis, she won the mile in a time of 4:33.04, more than a second ahead of second place, and more than 3 seconds ahead of third, for her first national D1 title. She then backed it up with a national title on the outdoor track, winning the 1500 with a blistering-fast time of 4:12.84!
So let's summarize her collegiate career briefly:
Cross country: 2-time All-American, 3-time SEC Champion, 1996 SEC Athlete of the Year
Indoor Track: National Champion in the mile (1997), 4-time All-American in the mile, 2-time All-American as a member of Florida's Distance Medley Relay
Outdoor Track: National Champion in the 1500 (1997)
Ranked #38 on the list of University of Florida's Greatest Female Athletes
Not too bad, eh? Well, there's more! She went on to run professionally after college, for Nike ('97-'99), Reebok ('99-00'), and NASC ('99-'00). What's NASC? The Native American Sports Council. Becki Wells, from what I understand, was member of the Blood Tribe, which is a name for the Kainai Nation, a nation currently found in Alberta (which is not too far away from western North Dakota). I've found it incredibly difficult to find how well she ran a professional distance runner. She did compete at the 2000 Olympic Trials, but in what was surely a disappointment, she ran 4:59 in the 1500 and did not move on past the first preliminary round.
Early in the 2000s she accepted a coaching job at the United Tribes Technical College, which is a tribal-affiliated college located in Bismarck, North Dakota. She coached track and cross country there briefly before moving to Tennessee to go back to training for professionally for the 2004 Olympic Trials, which she didn't compete at.
She comes from a pretty fast family too, with her Dad having ran with her when she was young, her sister a successful collegiate runner at Bowling Green State University (and a coach there later), and her brother having competed in cross country and track at BGSU.
While competing throughout her post-collegiate years, Wells was able to get some good travel time in, competing at meets such as the Milrose Games and the Drake Relays. With all the above having been said, it's safe to say that she is one of (if not THE) best distance runners that has come out of this state. Her accomplishments are truly incredible to view, even 15 years later. As I've said in previous posts, there have been so few runners from ND who have went on to be as successful at the D1 level as they were at the high school level, but Becki Wells was one them. Bravo to all of her accomplishments, and may you take encouragement from them when trying to move forward with your own goals.
Have a Great Day!
Website I used to help me:
http://www2.bhs.bismarck.k12.nd.us/athletics/bhsboystrack/alltimelist/top10agirls.htm
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2003/12/22/olympic-hopeful-running-down-her-dreams-89732
http://nd.milesplit.com/athletes/insider/3133305-becki-wells#.VT6RgSFViko
http://www.gatorzone.com/misc.php?p=title-ix-top-40
http://www.gatorzone.com/trackfield/stats/notes/pre.pdf
http://www.usatf.org/statistics/USA-Champions/USAJuniorOutdoorTF/women/1500m.aspx
http://ndrunner.tripod.com/id80.htm
http://www.gatorzone.com/crosscountry/tour/sec/2013/files/record_book_women.pdf
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19931031&id=Ij4dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=N6YEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6564,9700455&hl=en
http://www.ustfccca.org/infozone/public-meet-alltime.php?meetno=515947585
http://www.footlockercc.com/history/resultsgirls.php?year=1991
http://www.footlockercc.com/history/finals.php?year=1992&Button1=Go
http://www.usctrackandfield.com/1994i.pdf
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2003/09/21/running-talent-hits-trail-89340
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