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Rob Oller commentary | Ohio State women's track: Mamie Rallins won hearts with tough love

Stephanie Hightower arrived at Ohio State in 1976 a track and field diva. She left it four years later as one of Mamie Rallins’ little girls.

“That’s what she called us, her little girls. She never married and never had kids. We were her kids,” Hightower said Tuesday.

Those kids are heartbroken today, pained by the death of Rallins, the first African-American woman to coach at Ohio State. The Chicago native was killed Monday afternoon in a four-car collision near Fremont while driving from Columbus to her home in Port Clinton. Her car drifted left of center and struck two semis before colliding with a four-door sedan, according to a Ohio Highway Patrol release.