She was the 2011 NCAA Women's Champion over 100 m. McGrone grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and attended Warren Central High School there.
In Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) competition, she was fifth in the 60-meter dash indoors and was the 100 m runner-up outdoors, as well as being the 4×100-meter relay champion with the college.
The team of Nicole Marcus, McGrone, Danielle Jeffrey, and Teona Rodgers proved to be one of the best in the country that year, taking second place for the Seminoles at the NCAA Women's Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
[9] In her first professional races, she won at the Hampton International Games then placed fourth in the 100 m at the DN Galan in Stockholm – her first outing on the IAAF Diamond League circuit.
[2] She was three tenths of a second slower over the distance that year, and over half a second slower in the 200 m.[10] She ended her 2012 season in June and did not return to competition until the following April as a result of an injury,[11] but again she was far from her previous peak, failing to get past the first round of either sprint distance at the 2013 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
[2] Her fortunes were revived once she began working with new coach Dennis Mitchell and among her new training group was Justin Gatlin (the leading male sprinter in 2014), Isiah Young and world junior champion Kaylin Whitney.
[14] She was some way off this pace at the New York Diamond League race, coming sixth, but reached new heights at the 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships two weeks later.