Golden: Texas sprinter Julien Alfred ascends to legendary status

Julien Alfred is the next big thing.

By blitzing the field in three different events at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships — including a defense of her 100-meter national title — she cemented her legacy as the greatest sprinter in University of Texas history.

That’s the thing about track. The clock isn’t biased. Doesn’t lie.  It’s simply the clock. Alfred leaves the school as the fastest woman ever to lace them up. She holds school records in the 60, 100 and 200, and her 60-meter time of 6.97 seconds is an NCAA record.

Not to mention being part of the record-setting 400-meter relay team.

Texas football/track legend Eric Metcalf made the trip from Seattle to bear witness to the greatest weekend by an individual athlete in school history. Track athletes don’t have jersey numbers, but some way, somehow, athletic director Chris Del Conte will have to find a way to honor Alfred, who was the linchpin in the Longhorns' capturing a fifth national title.

“She was great because she was able to deliver when there was all the pressure of being the leader on a team trying to win a national title at home,” Metcalf told me over the weekend. “I’d have to say she’s No. 1. We have had a lot of great track athletes on the Forty Acres, but she has led the team to national titles, won titles as an individual, and set collegiate records as an individual and on relays. No one has done what she has.”

The great Sanya Richards-Ross won gold in the 400 meters at the 2012 London Olympics and captured three more in her career in the 1,600-meter relay — she benefited from being part of the world’s deepest pool of quarter runners —  but Alfred has an opportunity to be even greater. Coach Edrick Floréal, who just posted a second national track title in two years, said she doesn’t really like the 200 — even though Saturday’s 21.73 is the fastest  all-conditions time in NCAA history — so expect her to concentrate on the 100 at the World Championships in Budapest later this summer. She will be a real threat against our own Sha’Carri Richardson and the Jamaicans in a few months and at the Paris Olympics next year.

Better yet, expect her to go faster because he limited her races in the second half of the season knowing there is bigger game to hunt on an international level.

She’s already an icon in Texas track and is a member of my Texas female Mount Rushmore along with softball’s Cat Osterman, basketball’s Clarissa Davis and volleyball’s Logan Eggleston, who represented the school at the White House on Monday as part of College Athlete Day.

Alfred will undoubtedly show up at the Worlds ready to add to her growing list of accomplishments.

She’s that great.

And getting better.

Managing workloads

Save those arms: It’s past time for the NCAA to mandate a pitch count to protect young arms from the surgeon’s knife.

And from themselves.

Stanford left-hander Quinn Mathews will forever be remembered for striking out 16 Texas Longhorns in Sunday’s win-or-go-home Game 2 victory, but at what cost?

The Pac-12 pitcher of the year dominated the opposition but threw a whopping 156 pitches over nine innings, seven more than then Arizona's Edwin Jackson threw in a no-hitter back in 2010.

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Here’s the difference: Jackson was a major league pitcher at the time, making more than $6 million a year. Mathews is a pro prospect whose most valued asset — his arm — was put under unneeded stress, even in a game in which the stakes were high.

The NCAA powers that be must protect these young arms with a strict implementation of a pitch count, be it 100 pitches or something else sensible. Winning is important, but a kid’s future should be the biggest priority. Mathews said he had no intention of coming out of the game, even though Stanford coach David Esquer could have easily lifted him after the Cardinal took an 8-3 lead in the top of the ninth.

Instead, Esquer trotted Mathews back out there for the ninth inning, and he faced four batters before closing it out.

“Making someone throw 156 pitches in a college game is a great way to ensure that the kid goes pro in something other than sports,” a longtime MLB scouting analyst told me Monday.

I know Texas fans still talk about the night pitcher Austin Wood threw 169 pitches over 13 innings of shutout ball in that iconic 25-inning tourney win over Boston College, but Wood was never the same after that. The late Augie Garrido took heavy criticism for his decision to leave Wood in the game, and in our conversations years later he expressed mixed feelings about it.

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Wood, who had thrown 30 pitches the day before, became a Longhorn legend that night, but I always wonder what would have become of him had he not thrown that many pitches, even if he wasn’t expected to be a high draft pick.

Mathews is projected as a fourth-round pick — that is, if his arm doesn’t fall off between now and the MLB draft.

Then there is this: When asked about possibly throwing in Game 3 — which was played late Monday night — he told ESPN’s broadcasters, “I still have three outs in me.”

I love his moxie, but someone must save these young pitchers from themselves.

Golf deal draws scrutiny

PGA-Saudi alliance under investigation: Don’t look now, but the U.S. government is looking into the newly announced partnership between the PGA, the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

The U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is taking a look at the alliance that sent shock waves through the sports world earlier this month.

"While few details about the agreement are known, PIF's role as an arm of the Saudi government and PGA Tour's sudden and drastic reversal of position concerning LIV Golf raise serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote in a letter to PGA President Jay Monahan.

So you’re saying we shouldn’t take Bryson DeChambeau at his word? The 2020 U.S. Open champ has urged Americans to work toward forgiveness for the role the Saudis played in the Sept. 11 attacks. It’s the same DeChambeau who pocked $125 million to leave the PGA for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, along with other big names such as Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.

Excuse me while I go throw up. Again.

You knew it wouldn’t be that easy for the PGA to just simply accept what many in this country refer to as blood money.

Monahan said the PGA Tour just didn’t have the money to wage a fight with the deep-pocketed PIF, which has assets over $700 billion.

This has the makings of an unholy alliance.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Longhorns sprinter Julien Alfred now an all-time great