Record-setting Penns Grove track star Faleesha Dowe to be inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame tonight
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNS GROVE – When Faleesha Dowe was an up-and-coming track star at Penns Grove High School she remembers often walking past the display for the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame and hoping someday she might be good enough to be one of those faces on the wall. She got the same feeling when looking at the list of the track records in the gym.
“Someday” arrives tonight when the legendary Red Devils track star joins that list of luminaries she once looked up to as the newest inductee into the Penns Grove Athletics Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the school.
“I’m excited, I’m really excited,” she said. “I just found out a few weeks ago. My parents, they already knew and tried to keep it a surprise from me. This is phenomenal. I’ve always told myself I wanted to get up there and it’s finally happening. I’m happy I made it up there. This is a big accomplishment for me.
“This is the high school I went to. There are records up there that have been up there for years before I even was born. It was just something I always wanted to be up there with. I used to always look at the pictures of everybody who was up there and was like I want to be good enough to be inducted and be up there.”
Make no mistake, she is. All those records she used to admire as an up-and-coming track star, many have been replaced with her name.
She set 11 personal records during her four-year run with the Red Devils (2011-14) and five school records she either set or helped set still stand.
She has enough gold medals to fill a treasure chest. She won eight Tri-County Conference titles, 13 Salem County titles, 15 Group I sectional titles and nine state titles with the Red Devils. And those were just for outdoor track. She won eight sectional and four more state titles indoors.
She set or broke her own records 16 times in the those championship races. She won 27 other times in the major relays of the day.
After Penns Grove she took her talents to Delaware State and still holds the Hornets’ record in the women’s heptathlon.
“Faleesha was one of those natural talents early on,” said Marcus Dowe, her first cousin, Penns Grove track coach and one of those faces on the Athletic Hall wall. “She had an early start running in AAU, so she didn’t have the typical four years other athletes had. By the time she got to high school we already knew she had potential.
“As a freshman she was already acclimated. We knew she could run, we knew how she could run and it was just the next level of training and competition we were looking forward to. I couldn’t wait until she got to high school. When she came to New Jersey the conversation always was there what the potential could be. Looking at the record board we were like ‘one day this could be you.’ That was just about one record we were looking at, it wasn’t the 11 she holds right now.
“From that 2012 to 2014 year, it’s just Dowe, Dowe, Dowe, Dowe, Dowe, all the way through. Like they wrote when she was still in high school, ‘the Dowe is up’ when we won our second (of three) state title.”
All the records are meaningful to Faleesha, but one holds a special place in her heart – the 54.75 400 she ran at the state meet as a senior
“That was the first time I broke the state record,” she said. “I remember the race vividly. There was really only one girl I had competition with. I was in Lane 4 and she was in Lane 5. I just knew if I passed her within the first 150 then I knew the race was mine.
“Once I passed her I picked up the speed and I heard my dad yelling I’ve got to move because I’m trying to get the record and once I heard that I picked up the speed a little bit more and ended up breaking the record.”
Another race that brings a smile is the 4×4 relay she ran as a junior with cousins Kianje and Jaye Pollard and Courtney Smith that broke the Group I state record that had stood for nearly 30 years (3:52.87).
“At the time we were on the map, but we weren’t on the map,” Faleesha said. “Before I came here we had a good team, they had some decent runners, but they didn’t have a good team. Once I came and linked with my cousins and we were on the team together that’s when Penns Grove really became big when it came to track.
“When we went places people knew who we were. I’m glad we were able to put Penns Grove on the map for being such a tiny school with like 400 students. It felt good to be up there with the big dogs and really get recognized as a small town.”
Now, at 28 and living in Texas, she is a site coordinator for a national security company. She doesn’t do track any more – the knee surgery she underwent her junior year in college saw to that — and she misses it.
“I do miss it,” she said. “I’ve been saying I want to get back into track, but my knee is not the same. If I could run again I definitely would. I still have another year of eligibility for college to run if I wanted to.
“If I could find a good trainer who would help me build my knee back up so where the pain wouldn’t bother me then I definitely would run track again because I do miss it.”
But for now it’s all a bunch of happy memories, memories they’ll all get to relive and celebrate tonight. The inductee is proud and excited. The coach can’t wait.
“To be able to see your own cousin up there every day walking by that was a little bit of extra motivation, like one day you can be up there right next to me,” Marcus said. “Now her face and her name will go up there and I’m going to try to get it put next to mine.”
