An Unconventional Path
High School Hoops
Olivia Doran had everything in front of her playing basketball.
Her senior year at Dobyns-Bennett, she was voted Big 5 conference co-player of the year, captain of the team and hit a half-court buzzer-beater in a regional quarterfinal game against Jefferson County to send the game to overtime.
She had verbally committed to King University to continue her career on the hardwood, which included being on the team with one of her longtime friends Jaydn Potts.
"I went through phases growing up and asking myself if I was getting tired of playing, which everyone goes through when you're not doing well," she said. "I always enjoyed the competition (of basketball) and that's what kind of kept drawing me back in."
Career Change
Then, Doran stepped on the rubber oval and fell in love with running.
In her last semester at D-B, she decided to run track for the first time and excelled rapidly in an incredibly short amount of time.
By the end of the outdoor season, she had dropped 14 seconds in the 800 meters (2:39 to 2:25) and nine seconds in the 1,600 (5:37 to 5:28).
She was a member of the all-state 4x800 relay team for the Lady Indians that finished fifth with a time of 9:50.89.
"I had never run track before because I was always doing travel basketball," she said. "It never worked out. When I tried track my senior year, I realized it was really fun and I wished I had one it all four years."
The significant time drops and obvious raw talent attracted the attention of longtime Milligan University coach Chris Layne. Layne has had a bounty of success of the years and reached the mountaintop last fall as the men and women swept the NAIA team national titles.
Doran decided to give running in college a try under the advice of longtime D-B coach Bob Bingham and local running guru Ray Jones.
"Coach Bingham and coach Jones (at Boone) knew that I had committed to play basketball, but they encouraged me to look at running in college since I was doing so well and I had never ran track before," she said. "They kept encouraging me and they reached out to coach (Chris) Layne and then he reached out to me. (Layne) was very encouraging of what I could do if I kept running."
Initially, Doran's decision to give up a collegiate basketball career was met with resistance by those that were close to her.
It was Doran's decision to make, however, and she made the decision to go with what she fell in love with.
"During my senior year, whenever I started getting offers for basketball, the urgency that I got from family and coaches was a lot of pressure," she said. "I never really stopped to think if playing basketball was something that I really wanted to continue doing. Out of pressure, I committed to play basketball then I started running track and that became something that I really enjoyed doing."
"Deep down, it was an easy decision, but the hard part was how my coaches, friends and family were going to handle it. At first, they didn't take it easy and then they finally realized it was my choice."
Reloading and developing talent has never been a problem for Layne at Milligan, but Doran has proven to be a true diamond in the rough early on in her career."
Still Learning But Excelling
In her first cross country race since middle school, Doran finished the Covered Bridge Open in Boone, North Carolina in 18:54.4 for 5K.
"I had ran all three years of cross country in middle school (at John Sevier) because the coaches were also my basketball coaches," she said. "It was more or less doing it just to do it for conditioning purposes."
"In our first race up at App State, I really didn't know what to do. Coach Layne used (NAIA defending national champion) Alyssa (Bearzi) as a pacer for that race. When I finished under 19, I really didn't know if that was good or not."
So far, she has a season best of 18:44.0 at the Queen City Invite in Charlotte.
The Buffaloes are currently the top-ranked team in both the men's and women's NAIA polls and should be considered favorites to repeat.
And Doran is not just out there running near the back of the pack.
She's consistently running as the fifth or sixth scorer for a deep and loaded squad that regularly beats NCAA Division I and Division II programs.
"We're reminded of being on top constantly from the coaches and media," Doran said. "People often label us as not as good of a program because we're an NAIA school. Whenever we compete against SEC or other Division I programs, we beat them. It's very encouraging to be a part of a team like that."
Even though the transition has been a drawn-out process, Doran knows she made the right choice.
"I definitely like what I'm doing," she said. "I really don't have any regrets about not doing basketball. I miss basketball in general, but not playing. I'd like to come back and work with younger kids somehow in sports. I feel like being exposed to different sports like basketball and running can help with future endeavors."
Milligan runs their conference race on November 5th in Columbia, South Carolina.