Amy Deem arrived in Coral Gables in 1988 with a suitcase in one hand and a plane ticket back to West Virginia in the other.
Deem never used that return ticket.
What was intended to be a brief six-week internship in the University of Miami’s compliance department turned into a 35-year renaissance for Hurricane Athletics.
From volunteering as an assistant coach with the track & field team to being named Miami’s women’s track & field head coach in 1990, Deem took a leap and never looked back.
“I’m as passionate about the University of Miami and the things that it has to offer young people, as I was the day I got on this campus,” Deem said.
When Deem started, the program had zero NCAA qualifying marks. Now, she’s won 17 conference championships at Miami, coached 215 All-Americans and 19 national champions.
Even after surgeries in both her knees, which ended her collegiate career, Deem still laces up her shoes.
At the crack of dawn, she runs through the streets of Coconut Grove, striding down towards the marinas and cutting across Kennedy Park, making sure to get her three miles in every morning.
For Deem, excellence starts when the streets are quiet, birds are chirping, and when everyone else is still sleeping.
By 6:30 a.m. she is with her team in the weight room, turning prodigies into champions.
“She is a no nonsense lady. But what was cool is she matched that [energy] … she was always going to be on time,” said former weight thrower and Miami indoor and outdoor shot put record holder Isaiah Simmons.
Simmons described Deem as being “firm yet fair.”
Coaching does not just happen on the track or in the weight room — it happens in her office as well.
“Deem called me into her office to have a heart to heart and said ‘you got to tighten up or we’re going to have to move on from you,’” Simmons said. “She’s not scared to say what needs to be said in order to get you to start acting right.”
The hard conversations aren’t intended to cause conflict. They stem from a place where Deem deeply cares about her athletes and the sport. Her athletes describe her as passionate, determined, and driven — traits Deem agrees she possesses.
“I probably would put determined [to describe myself], because I’m one of those people that don’t tell me I can’t do something, because I’m going to do everything in my power to prove you wrong,” Deem said.
That determination translates into a commanding presence.
“When she did speak, everyone got quiet and they listened to her. So it was just this aura, you know, about her, this mystique that, you know, is hard to verbalize,” Simmons said.
In 2008, Deem was promoted to Miami’s Director of Track & Field/Cross Country, becoming the sixth woman to oversee both the men’s and women’s track & field and cross country program at a Division I school.
It seemed like things only went up from there when she was named the women’s track & field head coach for the 2012 USA Olympic team where the team won 14 medals.
For Amy Deem, representing the red, white, and blue was a moment to embrace, but coaching on the olympic stage comes with its own kind of pressure
2020 Olympic head coach Rose Monday, who was one of Deem’s assistants during the 2012 Games, noted some of the challenges the West Virginia native had to face.
Nike representatives were in Deem’s ear trying to get their athletes on the 4×100-meter relay team, and personal coaches of the runners were attempting to influence how Deem managed their runners.
Deem handled it with class and inspired Monday throughout the process.
“When I was in Tokyo during the global pandemic, I thought, ‘How would Amy have handled this?’ She would have done this, she would have done that. And it seriously gave me a sense of calm,” Monday said.
Shortly after reaching the peak of her career, Deem had a life altering moment — her mother passed away.
“That was a very emotional year for me, because my mom was my best friend,” Deem said.
Her mother’s death on top of the Miami track & field program not being as dominant as it once was resulted in a tough stretch for Deem.
However, with determination, she took the Hurricanes back to glory, winning back-to-back ACC indoor championships in 2016 and 2017.
“She just coaches with confidence,” Monday said. “You can see that her athletes admire her, you see that they trust her immensely. And then they do well because of it.”
Whether Deem is on the track with a stopwatch in hand or snacking on a handful of M&M’s, she always wants the best for her athletes.
She arrived in Coral Gables uncertain about her future. Thirty-five years later, Deem is still here — and still setting the pace.
