Trayvion White-Austin has had a heck of a season.
Not that the senior hasn’t had good years leading up to this; but when one breaks a record that has stood for more than three decades, keeps hitting personal bests, nails the standard to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials and goes 3-for-3 in earning NCAA Championship spots in all three of his events — in this case that's the 100-meters, 200-meters and 4x100-meter relay — all in a span of a few months, it’s notch above.
A lot of things have gone into White-Austin peaking in his senior year — and especially when it matters the most in postseason.
It was always just a matter of time.
“I think a lot of it is buy in and commitment to total success,” Arizona coach Fred Harvey said. “We’ve always known he had the talent, all the way back when he was competing in our youth track club. We saw his ability when he was 9, 10 years old and you just knew that he was definitely something special.”
White-Austin, along with a handful of his Wildcat teammates are competing in the NCAA Championships starting Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. It will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Trayvion White-Austin competes for Arizona during the NCAA West Regional track and field meet on May 22 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The semifinals of most of men’s events will be run on Wednesday and the finals on Friday. The exception for the Wildcats is the long jump and the triple jump — the two events Sir Jonathan Sims is competing in — which have only finals. The long jump is Wednesday at 6 p.m. and the triple jump is Friday at 6:20 p.m.
The 4x100-meter relay is scheduled to start at 4:32 p.m. with White-Austin joining UA teammates Brian Limage, James Onanubosi and Tyson Tippett. Next up for White-Austin is the 100-meters at 5:46 p.m. White-Austin then runs the 200-meters at 6:44 p.m.
The other Wildcat participating is Yan Vazquez in the 400-meter hurdles, which goes off at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
It’s the first time in White-Austin’s UA career that he is participating in an individual event. He said that his performances this year were a result of getting stronger, working hard and gaining confidence. It was just a matter “of believing I could run with these people.”
When it comes to the 100-meters, Harvey said besides building overall confidence, it all comes down to the mastering the mechanics of sprinting.
“That gives you the biggest jump over anything else because everyone in the 100-meters, you know, it's just one of those cocky races, you know, everyone thinks that they are the best but it's who can master the actual mechanics of the running and the race,” Harvey said.
And there’s something else. White-Austin, a Tucsonan who ran track at Sahuaro High School, thinks he has an advantage because of his start.
His secret is what he calls “running tall.”
“I'm not that tall, but like it's like standing tall white running and like a good posture, I guess, and then lifting my knees — that's pretty much what I've been trying to do this year,” White-Austin said.
It’s also what makes him the perfect lead for the relay team. As he steps into the blocks at the start of the relay, he is thinking about making up the stagger as fast as he can and not get caught by the person behind him.
Harvey added that he is the “most ideal leadoff runner for a four by one that you can ever imagine, because he's short so he can keep his stride open on that turn and he can run probably pretty close to his straightaway hundreds (personal best) on the turn because he's small, and the turn doesn't really restrict his stride length.”
Another advantage, White-Austin.
However, most elite 100-meter and 200-meter runners are tall as this enables them to cover more ground at a faster rate. Yet, White-Austin, who is not especially tall, can deliver times like the 10.14-second run in the 100 meters at the UA-hosted Willie Williams Classic, which eclipsed the previous mark of 10.17 set by former UA standout Michael Bates, who went on to become an Olympian and a five-time NFL Pro Bowl section.
White-Austin also put up a wind-aided 10.05 second run (plus-2.9) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to punch his ticket to the championships two weeks ago. He also owns several other UA records for the 4x100-meter relay team (38.82 seconds), the indoor 60 meters (6.63 seconds) and indoor 200 meters (20.64 seconds).
Harvey said the White-Austin, who is considered “a little guy,” in these events, is able to compensate because he “creates a lot of force.”
“He's able to project his body down the track,” Harvey said. “You think in terms of stride length, the taller a person is the greater stride length that you would have, which kind of makes sense. But there's also what we really look at in sprinting is what we call our effective stride length. That's really how far when you take off the ground, how far to in time do your hips move forward. Being light and being able to have great force, he can have a really great effective stride length.”
White-Austin, who loves to compete, always runs for his siblings — four brothers and two sisters. All, except one brother are younger. He will be running with a heavy heart at the NCAA Championships as one of his sisters passed away last week.
Besides wanting to do well for his family, he also is proud to wear the “A.”
“When I was growing up, I always said that I wanted to go to U of A,” White-Austin said. “I’m just happy I was able to do that. But it means even more that I could set records for the school.”
Championship notes
• Harvey said that the 4x100-meter relay team used last year's disappointment of not making it to the NCAAs to fuel them this season. They are primed and "are going to run a great race."
• Vazquez hit a personal best to make the NCAA Championships with a time of 50.54, which is the fourth best in program history. His goal on Wednesday is to set a new school record. Harvey said if he can do that, he'll make the finals.
"He's just really figuring out that he's capable of competing with the best in the in the country," Harvey said.
• Sims knew he was in a great position to compete in both events at the NCAA Championships after becoming the Pac-12 triple jump champion. It was his relentless offseason training that put him in this position.
"I just pushed myself on the weight room, pushed myself in every workout. I just really tried to give it my all and I knew that it was going to pay off soon."
