The Georgia State women’s track and field team is made up of many runners who come together to work as a team but individually stand out and perform well. Of those individual runners, senior mid-distance runner Angela Alonso has been impressive on and off the track for the past couple of years in her career.
Alonso, who is a long way from her home of Valladolid, Spain, does what she loves to do. Since discovering the sport as a kid, she has been able to be in the Georgia State track team, thanks to her head coach, Chris England.
“Coach England has been great since the beginning,” Alonso said.
England has been one of Alonso’s biggest influences since joining the team. Not only does he make sure she is doing okay in school but also in life as well.
“He not only cares about athletics, [but] he also cares about grades,” Alonso said. “But also with the international athletes more, he always takes care of making sure of getting your taxes done. ‘Did you do your insurance?’”
In the classroom, Alonso thrives. She was named to the President’s List during the 2017 and 2019 academic years. She made the Dean’s List in 2016. Aside from those accolades, Alonso has also made the 2018 Google Cloud CoSIDA academic all-district. But with such accomplishments, her work ethic in the classroom mirrors her hard work on the track.
Growing up, Alonso played many other sports before discovering she was an exceptional distance runner. The funny thing about the discovery was that running was the common factor in all the sports she played.
“I played basketball, which wasn’t really … my thing. I played hockey for a long time, I even swam too,” Alonso said.
Alonso originally started as a sprinter when she was really young, but it wasn’t until she was brought to a cross country meet where she did really well.
“They brought me to this cross country race, and I placed second or third,” Alonso said.
While Alonso’s immediate family is not able to travel across the country and watch her compete against top talent in the Sun Belt Conference, Alonso has found another family.
“I would write about … like how many times with track or cross country we think about it’s an individual sport,” Alonso said. “But I think the team is very important, and how we support each other. We have a very good group in the distance group.”
