Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame
Theresa Suwannapal proved that she was one of the most versatile sprinters in the long and storied history of Augustana women's track & field. To this day she owns five school records and she is on the school's top-10 list in a total of seven individual events.
During the mid-2000s the Winnebago, Illinois product carved a name for herself and she joins former teammate Keli Coleman in this class of the Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame. Suwannapal and Coleman join former teammate Meghan Voiland McMillan, who was inducted in 2019.
Unlike Coleman and Voiland, who both earned All-America honors in their freshman campaigns, Suwannapal took a while to hit her stride with Hall of Fame head coach Fred Whiteside's team.
She was a letter winner during the indoor season of her freshman year of 2004. In the outdoor season she ran a leg on a school record shuttle hurdle relay team that clocked a time of 1:03.38 at the Drake Relays.
With some confidence from that initial year in college track & field, she exploded onto the scene as a sophomore. It all started during the indoor season when she broke the school record in the 55 hurdles twice; the second time resulting in a sixth-place All-American finish at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships. She also showed the versatility that would be the hallmark of her career as she placed in the 55, 55 hurdles and 200 individually at the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin meet and ran a leg on the second place 4x200 relay team.
In the outdoor season of 2005, she was named the team's Most Valuable Performer as well as the Most Improved Athlete. She had the fastest time on the team in the 100, 100 hurdles and the 200 and set a new school record in the 100 hurdles with a time of :14.39.
"I was lucky to have a few coaches who were able to motivate me when I wasn't feeling up to the challenge," said Suwannapal. "They saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. They were somehow able to get me to push past barriers that I didn't want to."
Suwannapal is able to relate to that coaching strategy today in her role as a speech language pathologist at the Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency. "Today, I try to be the motivator in my student's (at work) and my children's (at home) lives," she remarked about the lessons she learned from her athletic experience at Augustana. "Some come with great challenges and some with small, but either way, I want to be there to support them through."
As a teammate for the Vikings, she was certainly someone who could be counted on.
Her junior year saw her once again qualify for the NCAA Division III National Indoor Championships in the 55 hurdles but it was during the outdoor season where she really made her mark. She repeated as the team's MVP and even a quick glance at her accomplishments makes it easy to see why.
She set five new school records during the 2006 season. She established new marks in the 100 hurdles (14.30) and open 200 (:25.05) and had a part in 4x200, 4x400 and shuttle hurdle relay teams which broke school records. At the CCIW Championships she ran on the winning 4x100 relay team, placed second in both the 100 hurdles and open 200 and was third in the open 100. She finished her season with a 10th place finish in the 100 hurdles at the NCAA Division III National Championships and also competed in both the 200 and 4x100 relay.
Suwannapal finished her career with a stellar senior season as she reclaimed All-American status with a seventh-place finish in the 55 hurdles at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships. She won the CCIW title in the 55 hurdles and set new school records in the 55 hurdles and 4x200 relay. During the outdoor season she added CCIW titles in the 100 hurdles and 4x100 relay and she handled the lead off leg on the school record setting 4x100 relay team.
She is grateful for the opportunity that competitive athletics gave her during her intercollegiate days.
"It really helped in my commitment to my academic career, myself and my teammates," she commented. "There were times I thought about skipping class or practice and that would have been the easy thing to do."
She acknowledges that those life lessons have carried through to the present. "Despite having those thoughts, I never followed through," she said. "I knew people would be disappointed, mostly myself. So being committed to doing the right thing is what I chose then, and it's what I choose now. Balancing a rigorous major and competing in a sport helped build some valuable skills I still use today."
When her career ended, she walked off the stage at graduation with a legacy that has endured to this day. She was a two-time NCAA Division III All-American, four-time CCIW champion and a five-time school record holder. In addition, she was a two-time team MVP despite having a career that coincided with fellow Tribe of Vikings Hall of Famers Meghan Voiland and Keli Coleman.
Suwannapal graduated in 2007 with a degree in communication sciences and disorders and received her Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology in 2009 from Western Illinois University. Since 2010 she has worked as a speech-language pathologist with the Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency in Iowa.
Theresa is married to former Viking baseball standout Jake Meisenbach and the couple have children Jacob and Talia.
She certainly remembers her time at Augustana with great fondness.
"I've made a few lifelong friendships during my time at Augustana," she said. "The support we gave each other allowed us to form a bond that we will have forever."
