Shawana Smith knows where she is going on the track.

Her feet in the blocks and hands on the starting line, she can gaze down the straight white lines and see her destination 100 or 200 meters ahead.

Even the sound of the starting gun, startling to some, is completely expected.

But in her brief stay at Eastern, the sophomore sprinter has found life to be a little less predictable.

Long before Smith was winning the 100- and 200-meter races at last weekend’s Big Blue Classic, she started out her athletic career on the sidelines, but not quite on the bench.

Smith was a cheerleader from kindergarten to sixth grade, when she decided to get on the court instead of just cheering for the players on it.

But she did not know which sport would be best for her. Her six brothers and sisters – four older – had competed in different sports at various levels.

Her sister, April, ran track at Clark University in Atlanta, while her brother James played basketball at Rust College in Holly Springs, Miss.

She tried basketball first, but didn’t like it.

A week later, she was an athlete looking for a team again.

Her first period gym teacher told her she was fast and should try out for the junior high track team.

“I didn’t think I was (fast) but I went out,” Smith said. “I have been running track ever since.”

After junior high, Smith went to North Lawndale College Prep, where she was one of only 373 students and part of an even smaller track team.

“We didn’t have a big team,” Smith said. “Usually when we started out the season there would be 10 girls, but by the end there would only be five or six left.”

But the size of her squad and her teams’ inability to compete in many large meets didn’t stop Smith from excelling and attracting the attention of Eastern women’s track and field head coach Mary Wallace.

“I watched her compete in indoor a couple times and then at the state track meet, but that was after she committed to go here,” Wallace said.

Wallace said her time in the 100 and 200 meters stuck out enough to warrant a scholarship.

Smith quickly signed on to run at Eastern.

When Smith started at Eastern, the class ahead of her was quite small – there are only four juniors on the women’s team now. Wallace said she worried about that last year, not having a large junior class to mentor Smith and the new freshmen.

But it turned out to be beneficial for Smith, who credits the juniors on the men’s team for pushing her harder in practice and helping her improve.

“They really took us in as little sisters and led by example,” Smith said. “And it’s good that the guys and the girls practice together. If you run with them, you have to work a little bit harder and you tend to meet your times a little faster. It’s a big benefit. That’s probably the reason why I’m fast now.”

While some members of the men’s team helped her on the track, it was her fellow freshmen girls that helped her off of it.

Living in Lincoln Hall, Smith met Nicole Walcott, Violet Nwordu, Chandra Golden and Tarra Grant.

The group quickly became close friends and while Grant still lives in Lincoln, the other four found a pair of off-campus apartments right across the hall from one another to call home.

“If you don’t see the four of us, you’re going to see two of us and if you see one she is going to find the other three,” Smith said. “That’s how it goes. We all come together as one.”

But in the beginning, Smith only saw three women with backgrounds and hometowns much different then her own.

Walcott is from Ontario, Canada, while Nwordu is from Houston, Texas, and Golden is from Normal.

But those differences ended up bringing the four girls together, much to the surprise of Smith.

“We really did come from four different parts of the world.” Smith said. “I’m the city girl of the group and even though Chicago and Bloomington are close, they are two separate, totally different things. I don’t know how we get along so well.”

Smith has twice traveled to Canada to visit Walcott during the summer and Walcott is a frequent visitor at Smith’s home.

The two live together now and Walcott said she could not have a better friend, teammate or roommate.

“We met last year as teammates and now we are like sisters,” Walcott said.

Practicing with the men’s team and having her best friend be from Canada were not things Smith expected when she came to Eastern.

Shawana Smith won the 100- and 200-meter races last Saturday as the women’s team won the Big Blue Classic. (Amir Prellberg/The Daily Eastern News)

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