BOZEMAN — First, let’s get her name figured out.
Montana State’s website lists the track and field standout as Truanne Roginske. We’ve always known her Tru, since her state championship days in Joliet. So now that she’s well into a college career, let’s clarify.
“Ahhh,” she smiled. “Tru, I’ve always gone by Tru. I feel like I only got called Truanne when I was in trouble when I was little.”
She’s definitely not in trouble, so Tru it is.
Closing her final indoor season for the Bobcats, Roginske, a couple weeks ago, absolutely left her mark in the 60-meter dash when she set MSU’s altitude-adjusted school record in 7.56 seconds.
“Obviously, that was a longstanding record, and to see someone break it was really exciting,” said head coach Lyle Weese.
“It was really surreal,” admitted Roginske, who’s not only a sprinter but also jumps for the Bobcats. “I actually cried when we were up in our team meeting and everyone was yelling my name.”
Here’s what’s interesting: The record didn’t necessarily come as a giant surprise. Roginske’s sprint coach Jay Turner had a feeling.
“It’s really funny. On Sunday at practice, Jay looked at me and said, ‘This is your week. It’s time for your name to go up on the board.’ And I was like, ‘OK,’ not thinking about it too much. Then when I broke it, the support from my team was crazy,” Roginske recalled.
Last weekend at the Big Sky Conference indoor championships where MSU’s men and women claimed runner-up team finishes, Roginske again had a full plate. She finished third in the 60 meters, ran the 200, qualified in the long jump and launched a personal best in the triple jump.
But that’s not nearly as busy as her class schedule studying microbiology, or, as she puts in in layman’s terms, the study of bacteria, specifically “the bacterial virus people have when they’re sick.”
“A three-hour lab twice a week,” she said rattling off the course load. “A two-hour lab once a week. Plus sometimes practicing twice a day with jumps and sprints.”
We know what’s she’s capable of in the jumps and sprints. What does she want to do with microbiology?
“I don’t know,” she confessed after a long pause. “Thinking about the future is really scary. I’m kind of thinking about occupational therapy school right now.”
“We’ll see. I need to get through the next six months first,” she laughingly added.
