Summer Grubbs

Union Grove graduate Summer Grubbs continues the legacy of the Grubbs family in athletics and in the classroom.

Grubbs, a star track and field athlete, was named the 2020-21 Female Athlete of the Year at UT Tyler.

Her older sisters, Cierra Grubbs played soccer at UT Austin, is now a doctor, and Cheyenne Grubbs is a recent graduate of the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin.

Grubbs was named a first-team All-Lone Star Conference selection in both Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field and became the first female athlete in the history of the Lone Star Conference to claim both the Outstanding Female Track Athlete of the Year and the Lone Star Conference Academic Athlete of the Year Award in the same season. The Gladewater native was selected as the department’s Female Athlete of the Year following a vote by the UT Tyler head coaches.

Grubbs scored a combined 48 points at both the Lone Star Conference Indoor and Outdoor Championship meets this spring, and claimed a total of five medals between the two events. She won both the open 60-meter hurdles and 200-meter dash at the 2021 LSC Indoor Track and Field Championships on Feb. 20-21, and finished second in the pentathlon to add a silver medal to her collection from the Indoor Championship Meet.

She was equally impressive at the 2021 LSC Outdoor Championships, winning the heptathlon with a 5,121 total, the sixth best mark in all of Division II up to that point. That mark would have qualified Grubbs for the Division II National Outdoor Track and Field Championships had the Patriots been eligible.

She also qualified for the finals in both the open 200-meter dash and the 100-meter hurdles on that same weekend as her gold-medal heptathlon performance, a feat which was recognized by the department as the Top Female Individual Single-Game Performance. She finished second in the 100-meter hurdles to round out her five LSC medals from the 2021 Indoor and Outdoor Championships.

As dominant as Grubbs proved to be on the track, she was also recognized at a high level for her academic performance throughout the spring. She was named the Academic Athlete of the Year for both Indoor and Outdoor seasons and was awarded a spot on both All-Academic Teams as well.

Grubbs established herself as one of the best UT Tyler track and field athletes of all-time this spring, placing her name on the All-Time Outdoor performance list in 10 separate events, and recorded school records in the heptathlon, 400 meters, 100-meter hurdles and the 4×400 relay. She would have represented UT Tyler at both the Indoor and Outdoor Division II National Championship Meet had the Patriots been eligible.

UT Tyler is transitioning from NCAA Division III to NCAA Division II. The school is expected to have full status in July.

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