Wingate University Athletics

Ahlivia Spencer enters her second year as an assistant track and field coach at Wingate University in the fall of 2018. She works with the Bulldog sprinters and hurdlers. Spencer’s first season with Wingate was one for the record books.
 
The Wingate University women’s 4x100 relay team earned the first All-American relay recognition in Wingate’s senior college school history during the 2018 NCAA Division II outdoor national championships. The quartet broke the school record during qualifying and finals’ races at the NCAA meet (45.30, 45.18).
 
Team members included Ruva Mzinde, Rhyan Madden, Justice Reeves and Tamerah Sebree. The alternate was Katrice Tolbert. Sebree had a big first year in the Navy Blue and Vegas Gold, as she was named Wingate’s Freshman Female Athlete of the Year.
 
Spencer’s sprinters and hurdlers played a big role in Wingate taking its second consecutive South Atlantic Conference women’s outdoor track and field championship in 2018. Sebree and Reeves were one-two in the 100 meter dash, trading spots for a Reeves-Sebree one-two showing in the 200. Mzinde was second in the 400, while the aforementioned 4x100 crew won the 2018 SAC race.
 
Prior to joining the Wingate family, Spencer spent two years as an assistant track and field coach at Indiana Tech. She helped the Warriors win the 2016 NAIA men’s outdoor track and field national championship title and the 2015 NAIA men’s indoor crown. The Indiana Tech women were second in the same two NAIA national events. In the 2016 outdoor title run, Spencer mentored the 400 meter national champion and the 4x800 meter relay national runners-up.
 
Spencer helped the Warriors win the 600 meter national championship in the 2015 NAIA indoor event as the Indiana Tech men claimed first place on the team leader board. The Warriors were second in the 4x800 meter relay and third in the 600 meters at the same event.
 
Prior to her time at Indiana Tech, Spencer spent one season as an assistant track and field coach at Warren Central High School in Indianapolis. She helped the Warren Central girls’ track and field team finish second in the state outdoor meet in 2015. The WCHS Warriors won the outdoor sectional and regional titles the same year.
 
Spencer graduated from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and pre-law. During her time as a Fighting Illini student-athlete, she was the Big Ten 800 meters indoor champion her senior year (2014). The team’s Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year Award winner the same year, Spencer was a finalist for the Dike Eddleman Award for the top Illinois female student-athlete.
 
As a junior, Spencer helped the Fighting Illini finish third at the 2013 Big Ten outdoor championship meet. She ran a leg on the Illinois Big Ten champion 4x400 meter relay as well. Spencer was an NCAA Division I All-American in 2013, helping her team finish fifth with a school-record time in the 4x400 meter relay at the national championship meet.
 
Prior to her time at the University of Illinois, Spencer spent two seasons at the University of Louisville. A three-time Big East champion, she set school records in the 400 meters and the 800 meters at the league’s outdoor championship meet. Spencer was the Big East runner-up in the 400 meters. Spencer was an NCAA Division I regional participant during her time with the Cardinals.
 
Spencer has honed her coaching craft by helping with the University of Illinois women’s track and field camp during the summer of 2013. She was an assistant coach with the Louisville Saints Track and Field Club during the summer of 2012.
 
Academically, Spencer spent one year working on her Juris Doctorate degree at the Indiana Tech Law School. Her concentration was Sports and Entertainment Law. She looks to complete her Juris Doctorate degree in the future. Ahlivia Spencer is the daughter of Rita and Demietrus Spencer.