Bio

Had she not been one of the most outstanding student-athletes ever to have attended Goucher College, there’s a good chance Natalie Williams Brewer would never have spent several days in May in Canton, N.Y. in 2003 or Decatur, Ill. the following year.

Those two cities are where the NCAA conducted its Division III Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championship those two years – and where Brewer went both times as a qualifier in the hammer throw. In her first appearance at nationals, she placed 19th overall with an effort of 137’2”; as a senior, she unleashed a throw of 152’9”, good for 11th place.

Brewer remained the only national qualifier in the history of the school’s women’s outdoor track and field program until 2012.

While Brewer excelled in the hammer, she was a force in all of the throwing events during her four years at Goucher under the tutelage of head coach John Caslin and the throwing coach, the late Larry Wineke. She was either the Capital Athletic Conference outdoor champion or runner-up in the shot put all four seasons, she claimed the CAC outdoor title in the hammer throw as a sophomore in 2002 and again as a senior in 2004, and she placed as high as third one year in the discus at the conference meet. In fact, she was the first female athlete from Goucher to win a CAC title in the sport of track and field when she was the top performer in both the shot put and hammer throw in 2002.

In both 2003 and 2004, the same two years she was a national qualifier in the hammer throw, she was selected CAC Women’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year in balloting by the conference’s head coaches.

At the time of her graduation, Brewer held the following outdoor school records: shot put – 12.09 meters (38’ 8¼”), hammer throw – 51.35 meters (168’ 5”) and discus 32.76 meters (107’ 6”). Although her best effort in the discus has been surpassed twice since then, she still holds the outdoor records in the shot and hammer, as well as the all-time top indoor distances in the shot (12.24 meters) and weight throw (14.98 meters).

Brewer is certainly one of Goucher’s most decorated student-athletes of the 21st century. In back-to-back years, she was the recipient of two of the most distinguished athletic awards presented by the school: the Scholar-Athlete Award in 2002-03 and the Coaches Award in 2003-04. The Scholar-Athlete Award goes to a member of the junior class who has consistently demonstrated varied and admirable participation in athletics and extra-curricular activities, in conjunction with maintaining high standards of academic excellence; the Coaches Award is given annually to the senior athlete(s) that has (have) most completely represented Goucher College throughout his/her (their) athletic career.

In 2002, she was one of 114 female track and field athletes throughout the nation, but one of only 10 who was attending an NCAA Division III institution, who was named a Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar by Black Issues in Higher Education. The publication established the award in honor of the late tennis great and presents it annually to those undergraduate students of color who not only performed admirably in their chosen sport(s), but also exhibited academic excellence as well as community activism. While she was enrolled at Goucher, Brewer volunteered as a teaching assistant at Garrison Forest School for Girls, volunteered in a reading program at Pilgrim Christian Day School and worked directly with special education pre-schoolers.