Fort Defiance straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border on sacred native land. To the east, a three-hour drive on Interstate 40, is Albuquerque and the University of New Mexico. To the west, roughly the same distance on the same freeway, is Flagstaff and Northern Arizona University.
Back in early 2020, when multiple high school state cross-country and track champion Ali Upshaw, then at St. Michael Indian School in Fort Defiance, was mulling the prospects of her college running future, she could look in either direction.
Go west? That prospect definitely drew her. Upshaw was impressed with NAU’s program, under coach Mike Smith, and she and her stepdad used to drive into Flagstaff to check out the trails and do some heavy training.
Go east? Another intriguing possibility. The UNM Lobos women’s team had built lasting quality program under coach Joe Franklin, had won NCAA titles and produced runners such as Weini Kelati and Edna Kurgat, and Albuquerque was familiar territory as well.
As things transpired, UNM offered Upshaw a scholarship and NAU, with hardly a roster spot to spare, did not.
So she went east.
Now, here it is nearly five years later, and Upshaw sits in the NAU High Performance Center decked out in Lumberjack workout gear. Through a series of events set in motion by Franklin’s abrupt departure from UNM for a similar position at Louisville, Upshaw found herself in June of 2023 at a crossroads not altogether dissimilar as that choice she contemplated back in high school.
Should she stay in Albuquerque, where she liked school (public health major) and the city but saw her coaches and several high-profile teammates conduct an exodus.
Or should she look east – way east this time – and maybe join Franklin, her old coach, in Kentucky? Or enter the NCAA transfer portal and look west once more? Part of her still pined for Flagstaff and the Lumberjacks, whose women’s program has steadily progressed in the years Upshaw was a Lobo.
The pressure was on. There were less than two months before the 2023 cross country season was starting, and Upshaw had to decide, swiftly. This time, however, NAU had roster space. This time, too, Smith and associate head coach Jarred Cornfield were fully aware of Upshaw’s progress at UNM.
This time, the answer was yes to the west. Now a senior who will help lead NAU’s women, top-ranked in the nation, on Saturday at the Pre-Nationals in Madison, Wisc., Upshaw smiles warmly at how the whole scenario played out. Sometimes, it seems, everything works out for the best – even if you have to give it time.
“It really is like a full circle moment,” she said, a hint of a smile spreading over her face. “I’m really grateful to be here. “You know, in high school, Flagstaff was the place I always wanted to be. I really wanted to go to NAU when I was in high school, but with their roster filled up, it wasn’t in the works.”
In the mad scramble over that summer when the NCAA transfer portal was heating up and Upshaw’s Lobo teammates Gracelyn Larkin and Maisy Grice also were mulling their futures, Upshaw reached out to NAU, and NAU reached back.
Was it a big selling job for NAU to land Upshaw and, conversely, did Upshaw have to sell herself to NAU?
Answer: no on both counts.
Upshaw, in fact, breaks into a big smile when asked the question. Let’s just say neither Upshaw nor Smith was playing hard-to-get last summer. In fact, not only did the Lumberjacks land Upshaw, but they got Larkin and Grice, as well, a big reason NAU came within a single point of winning the national title last fall.
“The type of person Coach Smith is, he always puts his all into talking to every single athlete he encounters,” Upshaw said of her initial portal-official phone call with Smith. “Having that first conversation with him, off the bat, I knew I wanted to come here. … I mean, like, everybody wants to be here.
That doesn’t mean the decision was easy for her. It was a chaotic time, Upshaw recalled.
Franklin’s departure shocked the Lobos team. Shocked the nation’s cross-country community, too, since he had built such a consistent powerhouse.
“It was really unexpected,” she said. “I think, like, I was coming back from an injury (the summer of 2023) and getting back into things and getting excited to get things rolling again (at UNM), and the news was kind of abrupt. It was like, ‘Oh, shoot, what do I do?’”
Stunned, she was at her apartment in Albuquerque with frantic thoughts in her head. Should she renew her apartment off campus? Should she move to Louisville to be with the coach she liked? How does one navigate the stress and uncertainty of the portal?
“Within the first week it happened, I took the time to process the news and think about what I wanted to do,” she said. “Ultimately, I decided I wanted to be in a place where the program is already in place. By the time (Franklin) had left, the whole coaching staff changed as well. The assistant coach wasn’t sure she was going to stay. Multiple people had already entered the portal by the end of the week. I was weighing my options. My intuition was to enter the portal and go to (an established) program.”
Time, in other words, for Upshaw to think about returning to the 928 area code.
But she had to make sure. She said she had scant conversations with Larkin and Grice – “each of our decisions didn’t influence the others a whole lot. We were giving each other space on what their preference was,” Upshaw said – and she said her “intuition” told her that NAU was the choice.
“There was a lot of uncertainty,” she added. “When a coaching change happens, everything changes. You have this visualization of what the season’s going to look like and when everything takes a turn, you aren’t too sure what’s going to happen in the future. Having that autonomy (as an athlete) over our decision process was fortunate.”
By the summer of 2023, NAU’s women’s team was almost as established as the dynastic NAU men’s program.
Still, she recalls it as a stressful time. She made a few phone calls back home to the family’s ranch outside Fort Defiance, which has been passed down through five generations, seeking advice from her mother, Kelly Upshaw-Bia, who was her coach at St. Michael Indian School and led the cross country teams to multiple state titles.
“I called only for support,” Upshaw admitted, “but they kind of knew what I wanted to do.”
Her family must have been pleased. Now, just like when Ali was running at UNM, all they had to do was drive about three hours – albeit in the other direction – to watch her run. And Upshaw said she could still come home to Fort Defiance a select weekends to visit.
Last year was a big transition for Upshaw, and it did not always go smoothly. She ran well, had a breakout race a year ago at the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, finishing 12th, and eventually finished 57th at the NCAA Nationals. In track, last March, Upshaw set an NAU record by running 32:53 at the Stanford Invitational. She qualified for the NCAA finals in the event, but placed 21st, running two minutes slower.
She said she hopes to vastly improve on that this spring but, when asked to choose, Upshaw said she prefers cross country. She’s hoping her senior year lives up to her hopes – but, as with all NAU runners – she said she’s focused on “the process” rather than the result.
“Some of my goals (this fall) involve shifting my mindset into a different year,” Upshaw said. “This is my last year, so I’ve been dealing with some of those thoughts that I’m not used to. Like,. ‘Oh, this is my last year,’ but I don’t want to put pressure on myself. It’s dealing with those ‘I-have-tos’ a little bit but I’m trying to shift my mindset.”
Upshaw is in a unique position among NAU women runners. Last year, of course, the Lumberjack women came within one point of upsetting North Carolina State for the NCAA title. But Upshaw also was part of the UNM team that finished second overall to NC State in 2022.
Will the third time be the charm for Upshaw?
She demurred, repeating the NAU mantra of not focusing on the outcome of meets, just the performance.
“With outcomes like that, I try not to put too much emphasis on it, because our team structure is built on having it all fall in place and having us focus on each other,” she said. “There is a part of me that thinks, yeah, it would be cool to win a national championship. In prior years, coming in second at UNM and here, they are special experiences on their own.”
No matter how this cross country season plays out, it’s a safe bet that Upshaw won’t regret her choice of NAU. She’s had to make up some credits for her Public Health degree that NAU did not accept from UNM, but she’s now on schedule to earn her degree.
Upshaw wants to use her degree to focus on community health on native lands, where access to health care and proper nutrition can be a challenge because of geographic and cultural reasons.
“I really like the community building aspects,” Upshaw said. “Public health is really geared towards community prevention strategies and program and capacity building, even in culturally relevant ways. There are a lot of community components at home that need strategies to fit their background.”
Since she’s been in Flagstaff, Upshaw has continued her community outreach to the large indigenous community in greater Flagstaff. For instance, last week, Upshaw took part in a ceremony at Buffalo Park in recognition of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation for survivors of the Federal Indian Boarding Schools.
She says her native activism is simply part of who she is. Just as she cannot separate her running from her life, so too with her heritage.
“For me, it’s an opportunity, especially here with the large native population here in Flagstaff and the large cultural significance of the mountains and this being the original lands of the Navajo and Hopi people and the surrounding tribal communities,” Upshaw said. “I think there is a lot of cultural significance here in Flagstaff, and it’s a part of me.”
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