By Gary Brown

Johnson C. Smith sprinter Shermaine Williams isn’t just quick – she’s a quick study.

Case in point: When her high school coach asked her to try the hurdles – an event she wasn’t even familiar with – she bit on the offer. “My coach said, ‘You just run and jump over stuff,’ ” Williams said. “I was like, ‘OK.’ ”

Well, Williams was way more than OK. In fact, she’s currently among the best in the world at “jumping over stuff.” Williams is the two-time defending Division II champion in the 60-meter high hurdles, having won as a freshman in March 2008 (setting a meet record in the event’s preliminaries along the way) and then again at the 2009 Division II National Championships Festival in Houston with another meet mark (also in the prelims). She also won the 100-meter version at the 2009 outdoor nationals.

“I just like that event,” said the sophomore who called track “just something to occupy my time” when she was a kid. “You have to be aggressive and really good to clear the hurdles quickly.”

That she would even use the word “aggressive” is surprising for the humble Jamaican native who lived a rural life until age 9 when her mother died and she moved in with her father.

But Johnson C. Smith coach Lennox Graham, who also coached Williams at a Jamaican high school before he took over in 2007 at the Division II school in Charlotte, said his shy student-athlete is exactly the opposite once her feet hit the track.

“Her nature is not wanting to fail at anything she tries so she just put her heart and soul into that event, and within the first season she was a medalist in the high school championship and a gold medalist in her second season,” Graham said of the young girl who would eventually follow him to Johnson C. Smith as a scholarship student-athlete.

Williams’ track record spans the globe. She has raced in Trinidad, Morocco, the Czech Republic and Poland – the latter where she won a silver medal in the 100-meter hurdles at the World Junior Championships. She was the fastest junior sprint hurdler in the world in 2008, having run 13.22 seconds in the 100 to win the national trials in Jamaica last June. More recently, Williams finished second in the 100 hurdles at the Penn Relays in April with a personal-best 13.06.

She’s currently anticipating competition in this summer’s Junior Pan American Games and eyeing a spot on the Jamaican national team at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

But first there’s her education, at which Williams also shows a natural proficiency with a grade-point average above 3.7. The biology major said she likes the U.S. educational system for its flexibility and opportunities for advancement and learning. She is considering being a chiropractor, so she can continue her involvement in sports.

Williams describes herself as a highly motivated but humble achiever. “I always strive for the utmost best in everything I do,” she said.

What doesn’t she like about the United States? “The food,” she said giggling. “I try to avoid the beef and pork, but I’ll eat the chicken sometimes.”

Meals notwithstanding, Graham believes Williams will be successful no matter her career path.

“She’s willing to address her technical flaws or what she needs to do to improve,” he said. “She’s always been a student of the sport in terms of constantly re-evaluating herself. She’s plugged into what she wants to achieve athletically and academically.”

© 2010 NCAA