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Coach Profile

Co-Director

Andrew Wheating

Gmrc Coach Andrew Wheating

American middle-distance legend Andrew Wheating serves as co-director of GMRC. From 2008 to 2012, Wheating, who at six-foot-five towered over his competition, won three NCAA titles, made two Olympic teams and a World Championship team, and ran personal bests of 1:44.56 for 800, 3:30.90 for 1500 (#5 all-time among Americans), and 3:51.74 for the mile.

Wheating’s career will most be remembered for bursting onto the NCAA scene and his heroics in the Oregon Ducks jersey and at Hayward Field in Eugene. In 2006, Wheating, a Vermont native, was a lightly recruited high school athlete at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, a school that didn’t even have a track team. But Wheating was fortuitous enough to catch the eye of early Nike exec Jeff Johnson and wound up at Oregon under Vin Lananna. In 2007, as a freshman, he scored two points in the Pac-10 meet at 800, but couldn’t break 1:50 and didn’t qualify for NCAAs. The next year, in the span of two weeks he ran a 3:58 mile, a 1:47 800 and a 3:38.60 1500 to get on everyone’s radar. By the end of the year, he was the runner-up at NCAAs and the Olympics Trials, owned a personal best of 1:45.03 and had run in the Olympics in Beijing. He earned that ticket to Beijing as part of one of the most dramatic races in Hayward Field history:

He followed 2008 up with his first NCAA title in 2009, in the 800 outdoors. But Wheating’s greatest season came in 2010, though that wasn’t obvious early in the year. After anchoring Oregon to the DMR title at the NCAA indoor championships, Wheating, a senior, returned the next night as the heavy favorite to win the 800 meters. Instead, he lost to a true freshman by the name of Robby Andrews (who wound up having a pretty nice career of his own). Wheating again lost to Andrews and his University of Virginia squad in a duel in the 4×800 at the Penn Relays, but gained revenge at NCAAs, where he beat Andrews to win the 800 and led a 1-2-3 Oregon sweep in the 1500 and became the first man in 26 years to win the 800 and 1500 at the same NCAA meet.

His most impressive professional accomplishments came that summer. On July 3, he ran his mile personal best of 3:51.74 at the Pre Classic, and followed it up with an 800 pb of 1:44.62 in Paris. Then in Monaco on July 22, Wheating ran a shocking 3:30.90 for 1500 to become the fourth-fastest American ever (that equates to a 3:47.82 mile, Wheating’s former Ducks teammate Matthew Centrowitz has since bumped him down to #5).

Wheating leaves behind a legacy as a great runner on the track and a happy-go-lucky, genuine guy off of it. Few athletes were friendlier or more candid in the mixed zone.

Credit: LetsRun.com

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