University of Tennessee Athletics
Gatlin: Catch Me if You Can
March 26, 2002 | Men's Track
March 26, 2002
Don't blink because Justin Gatlin just might pass you by. Then again, there are not many people he hasn't already passed. The Tennessee sophomore sprinter from Pensacola, Fla., has seen his role quickly change from the hunter to the hunted.
Coming off a rare double by winning the 100 and 200-meter dashes at last year's NCAA Outdoor Championship in leading Tennessee to a national title, Gatlin pulled it off again earlier this month in Fayetteville, Ark., winning the 60 and 200-meter dashes at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Like in Eugene last June, Gatlin helped lead the Vols to a national title in Fayetteville.
With the pressure on and the Vols trailing LSU, Gatlin and teammate Leonard Scott finished 1-2 in the 60-meter dash at the NCAA Indoors to ring up 18 points, virtually clinching the meet and the national title for the Vols.
"He's a special athlete," said UT head coach Bill Webb, recently named as national coach of the year for the second consecutive season. "I think Justin will be a guy in the finals in the World Championships and the Olympic Games. How soon, I don't know. It could happen in France in 2003 or Athens in 2004 at the Olympics."
Gatlin spent the 2002 indoor season with a bull's eye on his back after winning the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes as a freshman at last year's NCAA Outdoor Championships, as well as securing an NCAA title for the Volunteers. However, he's learning to live with his new role on the Tennessee team.
"On the track, we're learning on how to be comfortable with the idea that he's the favorite now and how he has to live with that role," said assistant track and field coach Vince Anderson. "Last year, he wasn't the favorite."
The young leader of the No. 1-ranked Vols, Gatlin has matured from last year and enters this year's outdoor season with new expectations. However, he says he still has the same mindset that has already made him a NCAA champion.
"I'm trying to keep the same mentality I had my freshman year," Gatlin said. "I'm out for blood. I'm out there to race and that's what I'm going to do. That's what kind of mentality you've always got to have."
Prior to this year's NCAA Indoor Championships, Gatlin won 60m and 200m dashes in February at the Southeastern Conference Championships in Fayetteville. Gatlin's time of 6.54 in the 60m was a career-best and a NCAA automatic qualifier. In the 200m, Gatlin blazed to the line with a personal-best time of 20.42. It was also a NCAA automatic qualifier, not to mention a meet and school indoor record.
Gatlin's meet wasn't over as he ran the opening leg of the 4x400 relay at SECs. The Tennessee team of Gatlin, Dwayne Bell, Leonard Scott and Gary Kikaya took second place, but in record-breaking fashion. Their time of 3:05.63 shattered the UT indoor record.
If that wasn't impressive enough, Gatlin scored 22 total points for the Vols at SECs, tying him with Alistair Craig of Arkansas and David Kimani of Alabama for the Commissioner's Trophy. The Commissioner's Trophy is awarded to the meet's top scorer.
A true freshman, Gatlin bolted onto the scene last season for the Vols and never looked back. He brought home second-place finishes in both the 60m and 200m at the SEC Indoor Championships, contributing to 1-2-3 Tennessee sweeps in both events. For his success, Gatlin was named SEC Indoor Freshman of the Year.
He also garnered All-America honors during the indoor season for the 60m and 200m with fourth-place finishes in both events at the NCAA Indoor Championships. And he was Tennessee's high scorer for the meet with 10 points. Gatlin's times in the 60m (6.61) and 200m (20.52) were the best recorded by a freshman last season during indoor competition.
In the outdoor campaign, Gatlin was a dominant force, being named Outdoor Athlete of the Year in the South Region by the U.S. Track Coaches Association. At the SEC Championships, he won the 200m dash and finished second in the 100m dash. He also placed fourth in the 110m hurdles and was part of the Vols' winning 4x100m relay team, paving the way for a Tennessee conference title with his team-high 25.5 points.
But it was at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., last spring that Gatlin made his impact on the nation. On the final day of competition, Gatlin raced to a first-place finish in the 100m dash with a personal best time of 10.08. Less than 45 minutes later, Gatlin pulled double duty by winning the 200m dash in 20.11.
The back-to-back victories secured the outdoor national championship for the Volunteers, providing they simply finished the 4x400m relay. The UT foursome finished eighth for a single and decisive point, beating Texas Christian 50-49 for the title.
"Obviously we wouldn't have won the national championship without his performance," Anderson said referring to Gatlin's back-to-back wins. "We won the meet by one point, so had he done any less, we wouldn't have won it.
"I thought he would be a NCAA champion, but I wouldn't have expected it last year. I think the surprise with him was not that he did it, but how soon he did it."
Although the pressure was on Gatlin heading into the final events of the meet with a national championship on the line, he said he felt like a professional prior to the races.
"At nationals, it was different from any other race that I had run in my life," Gatlin said. "I felt so calm and so at ease. I felt like there was nothing in the world but me, that race and my lane and I didn't worry about anything else. I mean, I was sitting in the (starting) blocks yawning."
It wasn't a coincidence that Gatlin did not feel nervous or jittery before the championship runs. He has found a new way to control his nerves prior to meets by using meditation exercises that he discovered last year. At a particular track meet last season, Gatlin said he wasn't able to control his feelings and heart rate. That bothered him, so he found a book explaining how meditation helps a person to control his or her own emotions. From that point, things have been smooth sailing for Gatlin as his new twice-a-day meditation sessions seem to have given him the upper hand when it comes to battling opponents, mentally and physically.
"The thing that makes Justin very different is that there are several people who have his talent, but very few who have his aptitude mentally," Anderson said. "He has an incredible amount of self-respect and he's not going to do anything less than his best, ever. He only wants to do the best work that he can possibly do."
Some of Gatlin's best work as a Volunteer was last year. It wasn't on the track, but in the community. Gatlin voluntarily attended all eight of the track and field team's community service activities, spanning from April to November. In those seven months, he was involved in dedicating a new elementary track, working with children, area clean-up work and assisting with race operations at the Race for the Cure, a race for those afflicted with breast cancer.
Overall, Gatlin is working on being the premiere Volunteer by combining his work ethic on the track with his community contributions away from the competition. With four individual national titles already under his belt, one of Gatlin's primary goals on the track is to make an encore performance at the NCAA Championships not only this season, but for the rest of his career at Tennessee.
Angela Williams, a senior sprinter at Southern California, has won the 100m for three consecutive years in the NCAA women's competition and will be looking for her fourth national title this spring to complete the collegiate sweep.
"I want to be like that," Gatlin said. "I want to dominate. I want to help start a dynasty (at Tennessee) where no one can touch us. I want to let people know they can come close, but they are not going to get us."
Something Gatlin overlooked is that the majority of his competition on the track already feels that way - they can come close, but they're probably not going to get him.
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