Ithaca’s Alex Simpson breaks record at Bucknell

Ithaca has been home to plenty of outstanding track and field athletes, headlined most recently by Riley Hubisz winning a state championship in the 3,200-meter run earlier this month. During that same weekend, one Little Red alum helped break a record at the highest level of college track.

On March 3, Alex Simpson was part of the 4×800-meter relay team for Bucknell University to set a new school mark in the event with a time of seven minutes and 28.08 seconds. In Simpson’s final indoor season with the Bison, it could not have ended any better.

“It’s incredible,” Simpson said. “I think that’s the dream to see your name on the record board. To be able to finish my Division I career—or just my track career in general—seeing my name on a Division I record board is just incredible. I never would have dreamed of that even to make it to this level, but to have sort of a recognition of getting that up there is definitely a dream ending to my track career.”

Simpson called their record-breaking run the “perfect race,” as everybody on the team was at their peak performance levels. He started the race off for the Bison and put them in second place. As he handed off the baton to one of his teammates, history was starting to come to fruition.

“The momentum kept building and each leg got faster,” Simpson said. “Right at the end it was so close, but it was just incredible to feel the energy growing there and see that our chance of really winning this was increasing when our goal had just been to get on that podium. Everything perfectly lined up for us to get the win.”

To go along with an outstanding team accomplishment, Simpson had plenty of individual success this season, setting personal records in the mile and the 800-meter run. Simpson attributed his success in part to his training in France during the fall while studying abroad.

“I think it’s the mix of the training and the competence of having years of racing at this level now,” Simpson said. “It makes it a lot easier to set up those races and run and go out hard, which is a big thing you need. If you don’t set up the first couple of laps or the first lap in a race, then you’re not going to run a fast time. [I’m] able to trust in myself that I can go out at those speeds and keep it up.”

When Simpson was deciding on where to take his talents, Bucknell stood out more than just because they were a Division I program. Simpson was drawn to the strong team environment that he experienced firsthand when he first slept over at the school and hung out with his soon-to-be teammates.

“There’s just always been a really close atmosphere on the team,” Simpson said. “I could immediately tell—even just from one night there when I was in high school—that it was a really happy place where people aren’t beating themselves up when they have bad races. It’s not a toxic culture. It’s just a nice, positive culture where everybody wants to run fast and have fun.”

Simpson faced a major challenge right from the get-go. His first year was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the indoor season being canceled and the outdoor season running for only a few weeks. As things started to calm down, he noticed an increased focus throughout the team to succeed.

“As our team has become better, we’ve got a lot of really good recruits,” Simpson said. “We always have a clear goal in mind of what we want to do at the end of the season at the league championships and what we want to do with these relay teams and our own personal things. Having a very strong team culture of focusing and wanting to win these things as a team and for ourselves has really increased since I was a freshman.”

Now in his senior year, Simpson has naturally become more of a leader on the Bison, especially since he’s the lone senior out of the middle-distance runners. It’s something that he’s been accustomed to, having been a captain of the cross country and track teams back in high school.

“When I was a freshman, I had seniors there who would teach you these things… and help you out in the relay,” Simpson said. “Having these guys to look up to, it’s nice to feel like you can give back and try to do the same for the younger guys and the freshmen and sophomores now who are just trying to figure out how to run in a field where everybody’s pretty good.”

As Simpson prepares for his final track season with the Bison this spring, he wants to go out with a bang and help break another record. That could very well happen at the Patriot League Championships—his final meet for Bucknell—which will fittingly take place at their home stadium.