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GOLD & BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4 82 BY TRAVIS BAUGH TBaugh@Purdue.edu C armeisha Cox and Devynn Charlton started running togeth- er in the Bahamas in seventh grade. Seven years later, the pair is rewrit- ing the women's track and field team's record books together, a critical compo- nent in the program's turnaround. Cox and Charlton met when Charl- ton's dad, David, an accomplished sprinter at Howard in the 1980s, started the Star Trackers Track & Field Club in Nassau after a few athletes he coached experienced worldwide success in the sport. Under David's tutelage, the pair made a name for themselves as not only two of the best sprinters in the Ba- hamas, but in the Caribbean, as they competed at the World Youth Champi- onships, World Junior Championships and Pan Am Games. They saved their best performance for the 2011 CARIFTA games — an an- nual event pitting the best runners from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Baha- mas and Barbados — when Charlton edged out Cox in the 100-meter dash. "Leading up to that point, we knew we'd be the top two for sure and every- body was wondering who was going to win," Charlton said. "It was just a mat- ter of who would come in first and who would come in second." Charlton's and Cox's accomplish- ments landed them on the radar of current Purdue coaches Lonnie Greene and Norbert Elliott long before any of the four arrived in West Lafayette. Elliott, who was an assistant at Ten- nessee at the time, signed a sheet of paper at a meet in the Cayman Islands saying he'd give Charlton a scholarship to whatever college he was coaching when she was ready. "Of course, it wasn't a legal doc- ument, it was just something cool and fun and I thought that was really neat that I ended up at the school he's coaching at," Charlton said. Greene was no stranger to the pair, either. He wanted both of them to join him at Arkansas where he was before he took the job at Purdue in July 2012. "I got quiet (when I learned of the Purdue job) and decided to wait and not Bahamian Bond Bahamian Bond Charlton, Cox starring for Boilermakers Tom Campbell Devynn Charlton, left, and Carmiesha Cox have played a major role in the track and field's team success in the indoor season. The Bahama natives have set a combined four records in the 60-meter dash, 60-meter hurdles, 200-meter dash and 4 x 400-meter relay.