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Vickie Liddell has won 104 medals in track & field since she started running competitively in 2019. This story is about so much more than winning medals. Vickie has what we all need: “heart motivation.” Photo by Tammy Thornton.
By Ray Glier
Vickie Liddell, 69, has 30 grandchildren, but she has to pause a moment and think about what she does that are considered “typical grandma things.”
“Hmmm…well, I do babysit my grandchildren,” Vickie said.
Her grandchildren affectionately call her Mama V, but she chuckles and says, “Yo
u know, I still consider myself young.”
Pay attention to this woman for three minutes. It is not her ego talking. It is authentic willpower, or what is called “heart motivation” that drives her thinking. Vickie does not have to manufacture the willpowerher to not let age interrupt what she wants to do. Liddell doesn’t have to force herself to do anything.
“I’m a grandmother, I have to remind myself of that sometimes because when I’m on the track I refuse to say that I’m older than those kids because I want to feel like I can do what they’re doing.”
Vickie, a retired high school band director from Pine Bluff, Ark., does track & field. She won a bronze medal in the long jump in the 2025 World Indoor Championships last March. It’s early in the 2026 indoor season, but Liddell is No. 1 in the world in the 60-meter dash and the 200-meter dash.
Here is more of her True Will:
“I’ve had people say ‘Miss Liddell, you got to realize you’re older’,” Vickie said. “No, I don’t. I can’t afford to think that way because if I think that way, then I’ll give myself a pass with being slower, or I’ll give myself a pass when an ache or a pain shows up.
“I let those thoughts pass through my mind.”
You don’t need slogans to become healthier, you need wise advice from practitioners…and motivation that comes from the heart.
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
Liddell started to compete in track meets in 2019, but her journey in the sport began 18 years earlier.
Here is short background on “Mama V”.
**
It was one of the worst ice storms in the history of the state of Arkansas because it came in two waves. Ice ruled the city of Pine Bluff from the middle of December, 2000 until January 2001, crashing trees and downing power lines. Vickie and her husband, James, and seven of their 10 children still living at home huddled around a fireplace for warmth because the power was out for days. President Bill Clinton declared his home state a disaster site.
The newspaper carrier, though, made it through the ice with news.
James opened the paper to find an invitation from Arkansas-Pine Bluff University.
“Had enough of cabin fever?”
The advertisement was an invitation to run on the PBU track. “We need to get out of the house,” James announced.
Instead of being resentful of the ice, they headed out into it. Vickie and James gathered up their children (ages 4 to 14) and made their way to the track.
It was a tectonic day for the family. Nine of the 10 children ended up participating in track and some still compete and coach the sport. (Incidentally, all 10 kids, including Vickie, can play a musical instrument. She plays the alto saxophone.)
Jelicia has her own track team and competes in Masters track. Christopher, Jonathan, and Joshua were high school track standouts and Joshua played football at the University of Arkansas and was briefly in the NFL.
Vickie’s turn in track came when she retired. She was already fit because, as high school marching band director, she told the kids, “If I beat you running, you’ll run again. You need to be in shape.”
One day after school, while aimlessly running 400 meters with no attention paid to technique or time, Liddell came over to coach Louis Moss.
“I said I wanted to enter competitions,” Vickie said. “I don’t think he took me seriously.”
Then, one day, Moss said, “Well, Ms. Liddell, let’s see what you got.”
Vickie had plenty. Moss still coaches her.
And her children, the ones she introduced to the sport, have thrown their arms around Mama V and her track & field daring.
One daughter, Velicia, drove Vickie to Des Moines, Iowa, last summer for the National Senior Games.
A son, Eric, shepherded Liddell back-and-forth from his home in Jacksonville, Fla. to Gainesville so she could compete in the USATF Masters Indoor Championships.
Borderline to win a medal, she won the bronze. The comfort of Eric’s home and his support had to make a difference in her taking third in the world in a very competitive age group in Masters track.
Another son, Jeremy, lives in Massachusetts, and when Vickie went to visit, he bought her cones so she could accurately measure distances in her training.
The support goes on and on with the Liddell crew toward aiding their mother’s aspirations. It is because Vickie’s children are aligned with her inner truth, her “heart motivation” to run and jump.
This story is about shucking concepts of age, but also about bolstering a loved one who might not have Liddell’s heart motivation. Help however you can.
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