Former two-time Olympian and USA Champion thrower Jill Camarena-Williams has been a part of head coach Scott Houle’s coaching staff since 2019 and enters her fifth season with the program in 2023-24.
She helped produce a pair of NCAA Regional qualifiers in 2023, javelin throwers Nick Forsyth and Kelsi Oldroyd. Oldroyd also won the WAC javelin title in 2023.
A native of Woodland, California, Camarena-Williams came to UVU on the heels of a standout career in the shot put. She began with her undergraduate at Stanford, where she still holds the outdoor school record in the shot put and ranks in the top 10 in discus. A two-time outdoor National Champion in the shot put, Camarena-Williams has six NCAA All-American honors in the shot put and one in the discus.
Both before and after her collegiate career, she thrived nationally and internationally. Camarena-Williams won back-to-back shot put titles at the Pan American Junior Championships in 1999 and 2001. After her time at Stanford she won a pair of USA Outdoor Championships (2006 and 2010) and in 2011 won the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships with an American indoor record throw of 19.87 meters (66-3.25), shattering a 24-year-old record. She was an eight-time USA Indoor champion from 2005-12.
Camarena-Williams also competed in two Olympic games, doing so in 2008 in Beijing and at the 2012 Olympics in London, after finishing third in the Olympic trials.
She won a gold medal at the 2015 North American, Central American, and Caribbean Championships (NACAC) and also earned silver medals at the 2011 World Championships and the 2015 Pan American Games, she also won bronze at the World Indoor Championships in 2012.
Camarena-Williams graduated from Stanford in 2005 and later earned her graduate degree from Brigham Young University. She and her husband, Dustin Williams, have a daughter, Miley.
