2014 Florida State Track All-American — Jande Pierce

Jande Pierce came out of the DeKalb School the Arts in 2011 with a track scholarship to Florida State University even though the school has no track team.

The redshirt junior wrapped up her college career this past spring and has an All-American honor and two NCAA Track and Field Championships appearances to her credit as well as an ACC All-Academic selection.

Her senior year academically in 2015 had its up and downs including helping her 4×400 meter relay squad to a win in the Alex Wilson Invitational with the school’s second fastest time in the event at 3:35.26.

She spent much of the season developing her speed by running in the 60 and 200 meter sprints as well as the 4×400 until a hamstring injury forced her to sit out much of the season, including the ACC Championships and NCAA’s despite being an alternate on the 4×400.

The 2014 season was the highlight of her four years at Florida State after coming off a redshirt season in 2013. Pierce became a regular member of the Seminoles’ 4×100 relay team. She ran the third leg on FSU’s seventh place and All-American 4×100 relay team at the 2014 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

2014 ACC All-Academic Team — Jande Pierce

Pierce’s team ran a 44.17 in the preliminaries to qualify for the finals where they earned the All-American honors. She was also part of the eighth place 4×400 relay that earned a final point to help secure Florida State the 2014 ACC Outdoor Championships title.

The big star of the season came as Pierce, a political science major, was one of 12 Seminole track team members to be named to the ACC All-Academic Track team for 2014.

Her freshman season at Florida State showed some of the promise Pierce had shown during club track (New Horizons) to earn the scholarship. Pierce ran the 400 leg (56.35) of the Distance Medley Relay at the 2012 ACC Championships as the squad set a new ACC record on the way to the conference title. She also ran the fastest leg (55.77) of the 4×400 relay team (3:46.29) that finished fifth at the championships that year and ran the 200 (24.10) to finish fifth to help solidify Florida State’s runner-up finish.

Don’t look for Pierce to use her political science degree anytime soon as she is returning to her first love, the arts. Pierce has put together her own produced music CD.