Beyond The Game

Idatonye Cheetham-West is a member of the UTRGV Women’s Track and Field Team. Cheetham-West is an exercise science junior.

If you could be any animal, what would it be and why? “Probably, an elephant. I love elephants so much, I think I’ll be an elephant because they’re like gentle giants.”

What TV show are you currently into? “I don’t watch TV, really, that much. I just watch movies and stuff. I’m not really good at watching movies and stuff. Like, every time someone’s like, ‘Ida, have you seen this movie?’ I’m like, ‘No, I haven’t seen it yet.’ So, I’m really just trying to enrich myself in movie culture.”

If you could have dinner with any celebrity or athlete who would it be? “Maybe a track athlete. Maybe, Sanya Richards-Ross.”

Who is your personal hero, and why? “I met this girl freshman year. She became my best friend when I came here to college because when I came to college, I kind of prayed this prayer saying, ‘God, as I go to college, please come with me ’cause I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do and then He gave me Felicia to live life with me, and she really put me in the right path and sometimes, I feel like I have an unfair advantage having her as my best friend because she’s like my secret weapon or something like that and just her faith in God. She wants to be, like, a film actress and so seeing her motivation through what she wants  to do, how she can still manage to love everybody else, and encourage everybody else, that’s really, really special for me.”

Who makes you laugh the most on the team? “Man, I say nobody is as funny as me on the team. Definitely, nobody but myself. Totally nobody. It’s all me. … Like, sometimes, I’m doing something to make myself laugh because nobody else can do it for me.”

What is the best advice you’ve received recently? “From my coach. He said, ‘If you stay ready, you never have to get ready.’ … We had a week off from our indoor conference to our first outdoor meet and I was, like, ‘Yeah, Coach, you know, I’m just kind of chilling, you know, I’m not really in competition mode. I just hope something happens when we get to the meet,’ and that’s when he told me, ‘Look, Ida, if you stay ready, you never have to get ready.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re right, because that’s a really good motto to live by.’”

If a song played every time you walked into a room, what song would that be? “Maybe, it would have to be ‘Stars’ by Kendrick Lamar.”

–Compiled by Diana Navarro