Austin Whitelaw struggled through his first couple of years at Tennessee.
The redshirt-junior suffered minor injuries and setbacks and had plateaued as a runner. Then, Beth Alford-Sullivan came to Tennessee to be the new director of track and field/cross country.
“I was pretty fit, but I wasn’t able to make that next jump,” Whitelaw said. “She has shown a lot of faith in me and a lot of other people on the team to get to the next stage, and she has really set me up well mentally and physically.”
Whitelaw’s next stage: breaking the 14 minute mark.
On April 4 at the Stanford Invitational, he reached that next level, setting a new personal best with a time of 13:56.21.
“I had a really good showing in (cross country), and I knew I was pretty capable and fit to do it this year,” Whitelaw said.
Alford-Sullivan isn’t surprised about his achievements. She said they had set out goals at the beginning of the year, and he has met them. He made it to the cross country national championships this fall, he scored at the indoor SEC conference championships and has qualified for the first round of the NCAA outdoor championships in the outdoor season.
As strong as Whitelaw is on the track, Alford-Sullivan likes what he brings to the team off of the track too.
“Austin is a great team player,” Alford-Sullivan said. “He is in his fourth year, and this year I really feel that he has found his stride — he has really found his place. He is a very conscientious young man, he has really led by example of doing things the right way, doing things consistently, doing things with a passion behind it. Through that he has physically gotten himself into great fitness and kind of his competitive and emotional mentality has grown alongside that.
“He has reached every goal we have set for him this year. He has had nothing but success this year, and it’s rubbing off on the rest of the group as well.”
Alford-Sullivan said training for distance events is a grind, and one has to be self-motivated to succeed. She also said the coaches set the run but don’t watch over the runners as they do it, and it is the runner’s job to execute the run. There are a lot of individual moments in distance training, but Whitelaw has led his teammates by doing things the right way.
“He has pulled people along with him,” Alford-Sullivan said. “He is a great training partner for the guys. We have a group of young middle distance guys, and he has been a great mentor to them and encourage them to take seriously what they’re doing when their doing it. The discipline is really showing.”
Whitelaw said all of the distance runners keep each other in check, on and off the track.
“We’ll do things to push each other outside of practice,” Whitelaw said. “Doing well in school, eating the right things, going to bed at a good time, stuff like that. Definitely during runs we all run together, and during workouts we are broken into groups to help keep each other in check.”
Whitelaw also enjoys keeping things light and having a good time. He said there is a time and a place for everything, but having fun and not stressing over the little things is important. A fun practice makes the tough runs easier and has runners looking forward to the coming workout.
It is an attitude his coach likes too.
“He keeps it light, he keeps it fun and he keeps it interesting,” Alford-Sullivan said. “He is very intelligent, and he is in the process of learning to apply himself even more. In all that he does he sets a good example.”
The Monroe, Mich. native had a connection to Tennessee even before he arrived on campus. Whitelaw attended the same high school as former Vol and two-time Olympian Todd Williams.
“I knew about him, and I knew about what he did, and I always knew he went to Tennessee and achieved these great things because he came here,” Whitelaw said. “Then they sent me a letter, and I came down here and loved the school, the campus, the university and everything about it. It was a pretty easy decision.”
The decision has paid off as Whitelaw currently is one of the top 15 5,000 meter runners in the east region. Even with this ranking he wants to improve.
“I definitely want to get the opportunity to move higher up in the ranks,” Whitelaw said. “I know that when I ran my time out at Stanford that there were other people in the east region and it kind of left a little sour taste in my mouth. You know of, I can beat these guys, and I want to be able to show that I can do that. There are a lot of great competitors out there and to know that you’re kind of in the upper echelon is good but it’s always helpful to have something better to push for.”
Pushing for the future Whitelaw hopes to set records.
“Next year I want to get a good shot at some of the school records,” Whitelaw said. “Indoors in the 3K and the 5K and outdoors in the 5K, maybe the 10K but that’s a really hard one.”
