Aurielle Brunner ’25 Wants to Take it All
Aurielle Brunner ’25 with one of her NCAA All-American trophies at the 2024 Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships. (Stockton Photo, Inc.)
Aurielle Brunner ’25 relishes the idea of beating people’s expectations of her. When someone suggested she could improve her odds of winning at the NCAA National Track & Field Championship by focusing on one event, rather than the three she was slated to do, Brunner scoffed.
“What if I could win all three?” she said. “I’m getting close to winning all three.”
Sure, it would be nice to win. Then again, five NCAA All-American titles are nothing to scoff at. She earned those for her 2023 and 2024 appearances in the long jump, triple jump, and heptathlon. Last year, she was also named Most Outstanding Performer in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference’s field category. And for Brunner, who majors in human biology, the main goal isn’t a gold medal but self-improvement—running faster, jumping higher, and throwing further.
During an interview in August 2024, just as her fourth year at Chatham University was getting started, Brunner said she plans to take it all this year—and that includes a win at nationals, something she never would’ve considered possible in her first year, when she was only playing basketball. “I know I have it in me, if I keep working,” she said. “Especially working with the coaches, and if I keep doing what I need to do, I can end up at the top of the podium.”
While track & field has provided Brunner with her most salient accolades, her performance on the hardwood isn’t a footnote. She was ranked fourth nationally for steals in NCAA Division III women’s basketball with 122 last season. That was her final year playing basketball at Chatham. This year, she decided to play soccer, a sport she enjoyed when she was still a student at Bishop Guilfoyle High School.
She made a few visits there while she was at home in Altoona over the summer to help the team, but Brunner spent most of her summer working. In the morning, she’d babysit. At night, she worked at a bar, where she’d serve drinks and food, as well as cook. And if you’re wondering if all of this makes her tired, don’t ask; the question itself almost seems to offend her, as it’s apparently a running criticism from opponents in the PAC. She’s going to wear herself out, they’d tell her coaches.
“I always told them, ‘We’ll see what happens,’” said Brunner. “And then I went to nationals and proved them all wrong.”
Brunner walks through the quad. (Jeanine Leech)
If you ask her coaches, they’ll tell you that unfathomable well of energy is part of what makes Brunner an exceptional athlete. Marshall Hoebing, an assistant coach of track & field at Chatham, coaches Brunner on throwing. “The fact that she’s really good at all this stuff is crazy,” he said. “Her work ethic is what really baffles me at times.”
When Hoebing met her, Brunner didn’t have any experience with throwing. But she wanted to compete in the heptathlon, so she’d jog over to Hoebing and try javelin when she had time during practices. “Usually it takes time, but with A.B., she’s such an athletic freak that it took a couple practices and she had it pretty down pat,” he said. “[She had] just a great understanding of how it all works and talking about internal hip rotation and how to move.”
Sometimes the difficult part of coaching, Hoebing said, is explaining a physical feeling to the athlete. Not with Brunner. “She just nods and starts to do what we’ve been talking about,” he said. “What I expect to take a couple weeks, a couple practices, she’s already figuring it out and moving well.” When she picked up shotput, she was hitting 10-meter throws in just a few practices.
Christian Friday, who coaches hurdlers and helps with sprinters, met Brunner when she was 19. “She had just an incredible maturity about her,” he said. She was fun and playful, but she showed up, came to work, and set the tone at practices. “It really impressed me to see that kind of leadership at that age, because I think it’s really easy to take a backseat role.”
“You could just tell, the first time A.B. gets on the track, that she’s something else,” he said with a laugh.
Brunner credits most of her success to Eden Bloom ’18, MBA ’23, the former head coach for men’s and women’s track & field. Bloom said she could tell Brunner was an athlete right away. They met during an early-in-the-year outdoor practice, when Brunner was among a group of shivering basketball players who were complaining about the cold weather.
But Brunner quickly made an impression on Bloom with her hard work and skill. “Coachability, that’s what you hope for in any athlete,” said Bloom. “She was also willing to learn. She’d ask for videos, we’d spend hours watching film together, asking questions. She’d be the first to ask why something wasn’t working or something wasn’t getting better.” When Brunner was in postseason events, they had lots of one-on-one time traveling to meets. Eventually, they became like sisters, said Brunner, who was a witness at Bloom’s wedding.
Sisterhood was something also mentioned by Kayla Johnson ’26, who throws shotput on the track & field team. She said Brunner is one of her best friends. “[She’s] the best athlete I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” said Johnson, who also plays on the basketball team. “She just works hard. She pushes me. Even during basketball, she pushed me.
“She’s an amazing role model for young girls who want to be amazing athletes,” she continued.
“She’s just passionate, she works hard. She lets the action speak for itself. She goes out and expects nothing but greatness for herself.”
Aubree Tack ’26 was also a basketball player until Brunner convinced her to join the track team, where she helped the Cougars place 4th in the 4x1 relay at the PAC Championship. Tack also started the Chatham Catholic Newman Club, and Brunner, who graduated from a Catholic high school, joined along with Tack’s roommates. “We’ve done events where we made cards for hospital patients, and we have a volleyball night with the priests and the brothers, the guys who are training to be priests,” she said.
When she isn’t practicing, competing, or working, Brunner said she likes to eat, taking trips to McDonald’s with her friends and teammates or going in on a plate of fries at Outback Steakhouse. She plans on starting graduate school to become a physicians’ assistant when she graduates in the spring.
She’s got lots to do before then. This year, she’ll do the 400m hurdles for the first time. She also does 100m and 200m sprints. “I kind of just do whatever they need me to do and whatever helps me get to where I want to go,” Brunner said. Where does she want to go? “I would like to go to the Olympics and be on Team USA. This year, I’m going to put in a lot of work and do what I have to do to be on Team USA.”
“There’s a lot of [work] that needs to be done and a lot of practice,” she said. “But I feel like, with all the practice and with all the help from my coaches, we can make it happen.”
This article by Mick Stinelli was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of the Chatham Recorder alumni magazine. To view more Recorder stories, click here.
Mick Stinelli is the Editorial and Communications Manager at Chatham University. His writing has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, WYEP.org, and 90.5 WESA.